Faithful to Save: Pannenberg on God's Reconciling Action (T&T Clark Studies In Systematic Theology, 10)

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T&T Clark Studies in Systematic Theology Edited by John Webster Ian A. McFarland Ivor Davidson Volume 10

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FAITHFUL TO SAVE Pannenberg on God’s Reconciling Action

Kent Eilers

Published by T&T Clark International A Continuum Imprint The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX 80 Maiden Lane, Suite 704, New York, NY 10038 www.continuumbooks.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Copyright © Kent Eilers, 2011 Kent Eilers has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 13: 978-0-567-44911-5

Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems Pvt Ltd, Chennai, India Printed and bound in Great Britain

For my parents, Don and Sue


contents

Acknowledgments Abbreviations

ix xi

Introduction

1

1 The Anticipation of Reconciliation 1. The Presence of Salvation and the Concept of Reconciliation 2. Representation as the Form of the Salvation Event 3. The Triune God as Reconciler of the World

16 19 28 40

2 The Actualization of Reconciliation 1. Three Hallmarks of Pannenberg’s Doctrine of the Spirit 2. The Spirit’s Activity in Creation and Reconciliation 3. The Spirit and the Proclaimed Gospel 4. Conclusion

71 73 82 104 116

3 The Proclamation of the Reconciled Community 1. Justification as Participation in Christ 2. The Church’s Ecstatic Participation in God’s Reconciling Activity 3. Conclusion

121 125

4 The Completion of Reconciliation 1. The Promise of God’s Faithfulness 2. The Spirit as the Agent of Consummation 3. The Harmony of Human Totality 4. Faithfulness, Time, and the Trinity

158 162 173 181 203

137 154

Conclusion

207

Bibliography Scripture Index Subject and Author Index

217 231 233

vii


acknowledgments

This book starts with a celebration of debts. My extended conversation with the theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg took shape in the supportive and stimulating environment of King’s College, University of Aberdeen, and from that work the present book was born. Don Wood’s ability to suggest timely (and at times infuriating) questions was matched only by his capacity for humanizing a process that could have been oppressive and sterile. The research carried out under his patient companionship was richer and fuller for it. Offering me time they could not spare, John Webster and Philip Ziegler each took a valuable and constructive interest in my work as well, and for their mentoring in theological discernment I am forever indebted. I would be wrong to suppose that whatever truth the present work contains was gained without the insights and support of others. Seasoned readers of Pannenberg were important to me throughout my research and writing, and from several in particular I gained fresh, wise perspective. Christiaan Mostert was generous in the way he read a preliminary version of my discussion of Pannenberg’s view of the Spirit and offered extensive comments which helped in its development. I am thankful also for the insightful, spirited interaction offered by my doctoral examiner Timothy Bradshaw; he is a model of irenic theological engagement of the first order. F. LeRon Shults was consistently quick to respond to inquiries, and his encouragement was a boon to my motivation on more than one occasion. I have debts to those who inspired me to love theology. It was in the home I grew up in that I learned to love talking and thinking about the Christian faith and everything else in light of it. My parents modeled the best kind of theological wisdom, and it is to them that this book is dedicated. There were other mentors and one deserves special mention. Matt Heard’s extended investment in my life has had the effect of providing vision for how the substance and robustness of the Gospel finds breath in the life of the Church, how faith seeking understanding springs out from then turns back toward worship. Then there are those friends who, in overabundance, invited me into their worlds; far beyond their comments and suggestions their company was a gift to me beyond measure. My dear friends Kyle Strobel, Mark McDowell, and James Merrick were and continue to be best described, like those to whom Paul sends his greetings in Romans 16, as “my beloved” (a)gaphto&n mou). ix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many others, in one way or another, supported the completion of this book. Thanks to the postgraduate seminar in systematic theology at King’s College, a lively theological community of friends and colleagues that modeled attentiveness and charity with texts. The talented, conscientious staffs of the Heckman, Richlyn, and Queen Mother libraries were a great help to me. For the financial support of many, not least of which Woodmen Valley Chapel and my family, I am evermore grateful. I also celebrate my brothers and family by marriage who offered me and my family their homes, hospitality, and love on many extended visits while my postgraduate work was under way. Several were instrumental in developing my manuscript into its present form. I am grateful for Jeff Reimer’s thoughtful and detailed feedback, Nick Colgrove’s preparation of the index, the editorial staff at T&T Clark, and for my students and colleagues at Huntington University and elsewhere who read and commented on portions of this book: David Alexander, Ryan Bushnell, Kevin Lengerich, Nick Colgrove, Dustin Flores, Norris Friesen, and David Buschart. True gifts are offered free of charge and without reserve. The presence of my wife Tammy and our girls Hannah and Abigail, the sheer gratuity of their entrance into my life, is such a gift. I celebrate a debt to them that goes far beyond the support, encouragement, and laughter they offered to me throughout the process of completing this book. Epiphany, 2011

x

abbreviations

ATJ ATP CD IJST IST JGM KuD MIG NZSTh RGG SJT ST1–3 TLZ

Asbury Theological Journal Pannenberg, Anthropology in Theological Perspective Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics International Journal of Systematic Theology Pannenberg, An Introduction to Systematic Theology Pannenberg, Jesus—God and Man Kerygma und Dogma Pannenberg, Metaphysics and the Idea of God Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart Scottish Journal of Theology Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, vols. 1–3 Theologische Literaturzeitung

xi


introduction

Christian theology variously names the difference between God and everything else: Creator and creation, holy and profane, uncaused and caused, infinite and finite, and so on. If nothing else, attentiveness to such distinctions has kept Christian theology mindful of the singular uniqueness of its object, God. “Let your imagination range to what you may suppose is God’s utmost limit and you will find him present there,” Hilary of Poitiers says. He continues: Strain as you will there is always a further horizon towards which to strain. Infinity is His property, just as the power of making such effort is yours. Words will fail you, but His being will not be circumscribed. . . . Gird up your intellect to comprehend Him as a whole; He eludes you. God, as a whole, has left something within your grasp, but this something is inextricably involved in His entirety. . . . Reason, therefore, cannot cope with Him, since no point of contemplation can be found outside Himself and since eternity is eternally His.1 And yet, reason’s incapacity to cope with God does not signal reason’s demise, but rather its dependence upon God’s own communicative selfpresence. “Reason is foiled, not by God’s distance, but by the character of his unfathomable proximity.”2 We call that proximity Emmanuel, God with us. Wolfhart Pannenberg’s theological program has been an attempt to navigate between this dynamic of God’s qualitative difference and his proximity. As Pannenberg describes it, to “witness to the glory of Jesus Christ” while remaining ever mindful of the “inconceivable majesty of God

1

2

Hilary of Poitiers, On the Trinity, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, series II, vol. 9 (ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace; trans. E. W. Watson and L. Pullan; Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1963), II.6. John Webster, “Editorial” IJST 6, no. 3 (July 2004), p. 231.

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which transcends all our concepts.”3 Pannenberg names God’s difference from everything else in terms of God’s infinity, or holiness. God’s holiness, however, does not sequester him from intimate involvement with the world, but describes his deep investment in reconciling all creation to himself in Jesus Christ. Importantly for Pannenberg, God’s communicative selfpresence—his revelation—is found in the particulars of history; God’s proximity is found through his acts in time and space, most dramatically in Emmanuel. In the closing pages of his three-volume Systematic Theology, Pannenberg summarizes his dogmatic vision for God’s reconciling action: “God holds fast to his creation through his acts of reconciliation, and does so indeed in a way that respects the independence of his creatures.”4 This is a telling statement, one in which the characteristic elements of this doctrine of reconciliation run close to the surface: it identifies the reconciling God in terms of his faithfulness to the world as the eternal Reconciler who “holds fast” (festhalten) to his creation; it emphasizes the economy of salvation such that the confession of God as the one who “holds fast” is determined in every way by God’s revelation of himself through his “acts of reconciliation” (Versöhnungshandeln) in the theatre of history; and it stresses the preservation and renewal of “the independence of his creatures” necessary for our fellowship with God. Pannenberg points us to God’s reconciling acts where we find revealed the infinite, triune God of omnipotent love to whom the Bible testifies: the creator, sustainer, and consummator of his creation who wills our independence and does not abandon us to the debasement of our rebellion. In his doctrine of reconciliation Pannenberg attends to the unfolding of God’s love as he comes to his fallen creatures and emphasizes God’s choice not to be present with us in “power and holiness” but in our place and under the conditions of our existence. God comes to his creatures in the incarnation of the Son, who “in consequence of his self-distinction from the Father takes the place of the creature and becomes man so as to overcome the assertion of the creature’s independence in the position of the creature itself, i.e., without violating its independence.”5 Throughout this doctrine Pannenberg displays the outworkings of God’s trinitarian love not as instances of authorial overpowering but as moments that infinitely affirm our created particularity and independence. In and through God’s reconciling action, we transcend (but

3

4

5

Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Theta Phi Talkback Session with Wolfhart Pannenberg” in ATJ 46/2 (Fall 1991), p. 39; Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology (trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley; 3 vols., vol. 1; Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1991), p. 337. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology (trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley; 3 vols., vol. 3; Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998), p. 643 (author’s translation. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 3 vols., vol. 3 [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1993], p. 690). Pannenberg, ST1, p. 421 (see pp. 410–22).

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INTRODUCTION

do not leave behind) our finitude through the activity of the Son and the Spirit. Our particularity is affirmed rather than destroyed; our independence is transformed rather than set aside. In what follows, I offer an exposition and analysis of Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation as it appears in his three-volume Systematic Theology (henceforth ST1–3). I have centered my account on this particular work because it represents his most mature dogmatic thought and remains the broadest in scope. In no other publication does he fully delineate this dogmatic locus. In various books and essays prior to ST Pannenberg addressed constitutive elements of his mature doctrine such as Jesus’ death and resurrection, the church, and the consummation of creation in the kingdom of God. But none constitute a full, dogmatic exposition of God’s reconciling acts in history—a fact which may explain the absence of a published, full-length exploration of Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation.6 Our attention rests most heavily then on Pannenberg’s presentation as it appears in ST, though I draw upon other sources both prior to and subsequent of the dogmatics when it is useful to do so. Further, because this study explores a specific doctrine in Pannenberg’s dogmatics and does not treat a concept or theme in ST or in Pannenberg’s theology more generally, I will interact with conceptual material and theological commitments fundamental to this doctrine as they arise in ST. For example, in Chapter 1 we take up Pannenberg’s conception of the “true Infinite,” which is related to his presentation of divine action throughout the doctrine of reconciliation. And in Chapter 4 we discuss Pannenberg’s interpretation of the “image of God” in order to gain purchase on his vision for the fulfillment of human destiny in reconciliation’s completion. Carrying out the study in this way enables us to track the flow of Pannenberg’s presentation with the least possible interruption while, at the same time, attending to the systematic relationships between doctrines critical for grasping Pannenberg’s explication of God’s reconciling action. In essence, in what follows I will suggest that Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation is best approached by bearing in mind its three most salient characteristics, all of which are interdependent, and when kept in view make 6

Two unpublished dissertations exist, but neither makes use of ST3 and its material on the church’s participation in God’s reconciling activity or reconciliation’s eschatological completion (Hyun Soo Shin, “The reconciliation of the world in the theology of W. Pannenberg” [unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Glasgow, 1997]; Dale Jackson, “Creation and Reconciliation in the Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg” [unpublished doctoral dissertation, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1993]). Herbert Neie’s earlier study only addresses Pannenberg’s theology of the atonement (Herbert Neie, The Doctrine of the Atonement in the Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg [Berlin; New York: Walter De Gruyter, 1979]). Other studies treat the doctrine of reconciliation in the context of related interests or as part of broader concerns but none in its full scope.

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the essential tenets of Pannenberg’s account transparent. The three characteristics center on divine action, history, and divine faithfulness. (1) Divine Action—God Acts Freely and Immediately in and for Creation The proper subject for a Christian doctrine of reconciliation, Pannenberg explains, is not the people toward whom God’s reconciling acts are directed but God himself and his acts. This approach, Pannenberg maintains, protests subjectivist accounts in which reconciliation takes place exclusively in the consciousness of the individual believer or the believing community (e.g., Albrecht Ritschl’s).7 Thus, following Pannenberg’s insistence that a Christian doctrine of reconciliation is determined by the acts of God in history, I trace his discernment both of the character of divine reconciling action and the patterns of encounter generated between God and creatures. In the course of marking out God’s reconciling action, how does Pannenberg understand the interaction and exchange between divine and human agency? What texture does this understanding take as his presentation unfolds? Pannenberg is sensitive to the issues raised by a doctrine of reconciliation in which the acts of God are of primary importance; he says, “The more decidedly we think of the reconciliation of the world as an act of God himself, the more urgently the question arises as to the role of the human recipients.”8 Pannenberg is, then, concerned to emphasize the unique character of divine action; action that does not destroy but in fact renews human independence, action that includes without depleting human particularity. In this respect one might say that Pannenberg has long wrestled with the essence of the question John Webster asks in relation to Barth’s vision for human ethical action: “How can we talk of human action in such a way that we affirm both the reality of divine grace and the reality of action as a human moral project?”9 We can see Pannenberg grappling with this question at several points in his presentation. For example, he treats the human appropriation of divine revelation in Christ as the “pneumatological unfolding of revelation’s meaning.”10 Pannenberg’s highly nuanced pneumatology works to explicate the Spirit’s illumining and perfecting activity in order that human

7

8 9

10

Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology (trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley; 3 vols., vol. 2; Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1994), p. 412. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 415. John Webster, Barth’s Ethics of Reconciliation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 14. Paul DeHart uses this language to critique what he terms Barth’s “Christological reduction” of human understandings outside the circle of faith (Paul DeHart, The Trial of the Witnesses: The Rise and Decline of Postliberal Theology [Oxford: Blackwell, 2006], p. 266).

4

INTRODUCTION

independence is “not set aside, but renewed.”11 For this to occur, he stresses that reconciliation’s realization cannot come upon us solely as an outside force but must “happen on our side as well.”12 By creatively appropriating the language and concepts of contemporary field theories, Pannenberg paints a picture of the Spirit’s activity that works to hold together the free human appropriation of revelation with his long-standing portrayal of God as alldetermining reality. Ecclesiology is another example. In ST3 Pannenberg describes the church’s life in action as “participation,” in the process criticizing some forms of Liberation Theology which deplete the properly divine work of kingdom consummation by elevating the capacity of human action beyond its proper limits. Pannenberg emphasizes instead the divine origin behind the coming of the kingdom and the manner in which this conviction should reorient our understanding of human action. In a preliminary way these two examples illustrate how Pannenberg continually attempts to steer between equal and opposite errors: a deterministic comprehension of God on one hand and the overinflation of human agency and capacity to the detriment of human finitude on the other. Pannenberg’s mode of navigating that challenge, as I will demonstrate, trades heavily on the conceptuality of divine infinity (or holiness) and his closely related understanding of God’s essence as Spirit. Given Pannenberg’s assertion that a “material distinction” exists between dogmatics and ethics, one might suspect that the patterns of encounter between divine and human action (as they relate specifically to human creatures as agents) would not readily appear in ST.13 Two preliminary observations might be offered. First, it appears that Pannenberg’s thinking on this relationship shifts between ST1 and ST3 toward a more intimate connection between the two, an association readily apparent in several essays subsequent to ST.14 Or, less provocatively, one could say that Pannenberg’s account of ecclesial action as “participation,” which trades heavily on a particular account of the believer’s union with Christ, enables him to adequately account for creaturely action. Second, Pannenberg describes the work of dogmatics as a presentation of a systematic doctrine of God “and nothing else,” but his doctrine of God takes shape in such a way that it includes an account of the entire economy of God’s reconciling works: “Only with the consummation of the world in the kingdom of God does God’s love reach its goal and the doctrine of God reach its 11 12 13 14

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 450. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 450. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 59, n. 128. See Wolfhart Pannenberg, Grundlagen der Ethik: Philosophisch-theologische Perspektiven (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), p. 5; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Moral und Religion (1998),” in Beiträge zur Ethik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004), p. 89.

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conclusion. . . . To this extent Christian dogmatics is in every part the doctrine of God.”15 Although the distinctions between Pannenberg and Barth are often pointed out as many, this is a point on which Pannenberg shares a great deal in common with Barth, who wrote that “an abstract doctrine of God has no place in the Christian realm, only a ‘doctrine of God and of man,’ a doctrine of the commerce and communion between God and man.”16 In this respect, the relationship between Pannenberg’s doctrines of God and reconciliation are congruent with Barth’s instincts, though fleshed out in ways unique to Pannenberg. Conscious of the limitations of a study such as this one, I do not attempt a fully developed account of Pannenberg’s concepts of divine action or human moral agency (although both are worthy courses of study). Instead, because Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation repeatedly gives its attention both to the saving movements of the trinitarian God in history and—importantly—to the patterns of encounter generated between him and his creatures, I remain attentive to both as they repeatedly arise in the exposition. My study, then, of these relational dynamics in Pannenberg’s mature theology necessarily draws particular attention to the logic of divine-human relations in his doctrine of reconciliation, asking what it means to say that God’s reconciling action includes human actions, and how the particularity and independence of human creatures are not set aside but transformed. On the basis of a detailed examination of the central texts, I argue that Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation at once marks out God’s action in the world as the true Infinite and issues an invitation to consider how such a God extends himself in reconciling love to his creatures so that their finite creatureliness is at every turn affirmed and found in the end to be “good.” In addition, focusing on the divine acts of reconciliation serves as a limiting factor; I will explore related material such as Pannenberg’s view of the human person, Christ’s divinity and humanity, and the church and her offices only as they relate to the character of divine reconciling action as Pannenberg presents it. (2) History—History is a Function of the Faithfulness of God to His Creation Because—and only because—it is an account of divine reconciling action in history, Pannenberg explicates the doctrine of reconciliation in terms of an open process originating with the Christ-event and moving toward its

15 16

Pannenberg, ST1, p. 447. Karl Barth, “Evangelical Theology in the Nineteenth Century,” in The Humanity of God (trans. Thomas Wieser and John Newton Thomas; Richmond: John Knox Press, 1963), p. 11. Emphasis mine. Similarly, Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (trans. G. W. Bromiley; vol. II/2; London: T&T Clark, 1957), p. 5.

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completion in the eschatological coming of the kingdom of God. It takes the form then of a process of divine acts. Pannenberg marks out his doctrine of reconciliation across a wide swath of ST via the movements of God’s reconciling acts in history. For Pannenberg, explicating the doctrine of reconciliation in terms of a process of divine action most effectively testifies that the death and resurrection of Christ is “opened up for us” and in need of completion through the ongoing activity of the Spirit in the church’s proclamation by which “the event of reconciliation . . . still goes forward.”17 The event of reconciliation (Versöhnungsgeschehen) is not a punctiliar divine act but encompasses the entire process of renewing our fellowship that sin had broken, from incarnation through to reconciliation’s eschatological completion (Vollendung) in history’s consummation in the kingdom of God.18 In short, delineating a doctrine of reconciliation is not, in Pannenberg’s view, limited to an explication of the work of Christ for salvation in incarnation and expiation. Instead, it encapsulates the entirety of God’s reconciling activity that he describes as the anticipation, actualization, proclamation, and consummation of reconciliation. In this study I hope to make Pannenberg’s intentions readily apparent by closely following this progression. The value of grasping the rationale for Pannenberg’s presentation is that it makes transparent his emphasis on the transformation of human independence as well as his subsequent stress on the church’s active participation in God’s reconciling acts. Because Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation takes the form of an account of God’s reconciling acts—and is thereby woven throughout the doctrines of God, creation, Christology, soteriology, ecclesiology, and consummation—my explication of necessity occasionally probes, sometimes at length, these related doctrines. It also necessitates some consideration of other more general aspects of Pannenberg’s theology such as the relationship between temporality and divine action, his future-oriented ontology, and the manner in which he employs scientific theories and anthropological arguments toward systematic-theological ends. (3) Divine Faithfulness—Reconciliation as “Holding Fast” to Creation Because Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation is an account of God’s reconciling acts in the form of an ongoing, open process moving toward its completion, it is fitting that the biblical theme of divine “faithfulness” forms its central, unifying “thread.” Paying close attention to the shape, emphases, and nuances of Pannenberg’s account, we are able to trace this thread which ties his presentation of God’s acts one to another, a thread seen in the 17 18

Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 412–13. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 413; Pannenberg, ST3, p. 641.

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quotation I referenced at the outset: “God holds fast to his creation through his acts of reconciliation, and does so indeed in a way that respects the independence of his creatures.” In saying that God “holds fast” (hält fest) to his creation—an idiom repeatedly used in ST and elsewhere—Pannenberg makes reference to the attribute of the divine character from which the unfolding of God’s reconciling acts originates and the thread by which they are held together: faithfulness. Faithfulness requires time, which Pannenberg emphasizes in terms of God’s promise-making and promise-keeping, and it thus serves as an appropriate thread by which God’s reconciling acts are united and sourced in the eternal divine life. Reconciliation is an expression of this faithfulness toward sinful creation. For us to gain purchase on Pannenberg’s use of divine faithfulness in ST, we are required to see how it functions dogmatically on two interrelated “planes”: an eternal plane allied to the divine life in se and a temporal plane related to God’s acts in history. In terms of the latter, God holds fast to fallen creatures through his reconciling acts in history (temporal plane) and in doing so reveals his eternal “identity and consistency” as faithful.19 In this sense, “faithfulness” describes a characteristic of God’s acts in history which reveal a divine attribute. One does not know God as the Faithful One from “the timeless identity of a concept of being,” Pannenberg argues. Rather, we ascribe faithfulness to God’s self-identity only as it is “demonstrated through his faithfulness in historical action characterized by its holiness, goodness, patience, righteousness, and wisdom.”20 In other words, knowledge of God’s faithfulness—and importantly his triunity—is mediated historically through the life of Jesus which is, for Pannenberg, the element of truth to Rahner’s maxim of the identity between the immanent and economic Trinity. In terms of the former, divine faithfulness functions in Pannenberg’s account to secure the eternal self-identity of God in se (eternal plane). Contrary to some interpreters, Pannenberg’s intention in his presentation is not to make the eternal divine life dependent on the world’s historical processes but works instead to maintain the sufficiency of God’s life in se while, at the same time, it seeks an increased “integration of God’s life with the historical life of the world.”21 19 20

21

Pannenberg, ST1, p. 436. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 444 (author’s translation. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 3 vols., vol. 1 [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988], p. 479). Fred Sanders, The Image of the Immanent Trinity: Rahner’s Rule and the Theological Interpretation of Scripture (New York: Peter Lang, 2005), p. 97. Pannenberg’s critical evaluation of Robert Jenson’s doctrine of the Trinity is telling in this regard: “It is certainly true that that trinitarian God in the history of salvation is the same God as in the eternal life. But there is also a necessary distinction that maintains the priority of the eternal communion of the triune God over the communion’s explication in the history of salvation” (Wolfhart Pannenberg, “A Trinitarian Synthesis: A Review of Robert Jenson’s Systematic Theology: Volumes 1 & 2,” First Things May [2000], pp. 49–53).

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In affirming God’s eternal faithfulness to himself, Pannenberg offers a presentation of God’s relation to creation that works to avoid the Scylla of God’s absorption into history on one hand and the Charybdis of his absolute distance from it on the other. For Pannenberg, God is immanent to creation without being absorbed into history and transcendent to the world without being sequestered from genuine exchange with it. The faithfulness of God does not indicate his timeless unchangeability but his “constancy in the actual process of time and history, and especially his holding fast to his saving will [Festhalten an seinem Heilswillen], to his covenant, to his promises, and also to the orders of creation.”22 Pannenberg thus attempts to shift our view of God’s eternality so that it can include real changes in God, such as the incarnation and atonement, without sacrificing God’s faithfulness to his own identity. We might stay with this point for a moment longer to register its importance for Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation and for the way in which he conceives the relationship between the immanent and economic Trinity. Without claiming an exhaustive explication of Pannenberg’s doctrine of the Trinity, attentiveness to the concept of divine faithfulness and its application within the doctrine of reconciliation provides an opportunity for us to consider his portrayal of the unity between the immanent and economic Trinity and the possibility that it constrains divine freedom, yoking God to the world process (as some allege).23 Regarding the relationship between the immanent 22

23

Pannenberg, ST1, p. 437. Similarly, Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Appropriation of the Philosophical Concept of God as a Dogmatic Problem of Early Christian Theology (1959),” in Basic Questions in Theology, 2 vols., vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971), pp. 161–3. Consider, Paul Molnar, “The Trinity and the Freedom of God,” Journal for Christian Theological Research 8 (2003), p. 63; Paul Molnar, Divine Freedom and the Doctrine of the Immanent Trinity (London; New York: T&T Clark, 2002), pp. 140–1; Paul Molnar, “Some Problems with Pannenberg’s Solution to Barth’s ‘Faith Subjectivism,’ ” SJT 48, no. 3 (1995), pp. 316, 331, 336, 338. Others share similar worries about the relationship between immanent and economic Trinity: M. Schulz, Sein und Trinität (St Ottilien: EOS Verlag, 1997), p. 473; K. Vechtel, Trinität und Zukunft. Zum Verhältnis von Philosophie und Trinitätstheologie im Denken of Wolfhart Pannenbergs (Frankfurt: Knecht, 2001), pp. 196, 216, 272); J. A. Martinez Camino, “Wechselseitige Selbstunterscheidung? Zur Trinitätslehre Wolfhart Pannenbergs,” in Reflektierter Glaube. Festschrift für Erhard J. Kunz SJ zum 65 (ed. H.-L. Ollig and O. J. Wirtz; München: Frankfurt am Main, 1999), p. 147 (I rely on Pannenberg’s response to Schulz, Vechtel, and Camino in Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Divine Economy and Eternal Trinity,” in The Theology of John Zizioulas: Personhood and the Church [ed. Douglas Knight; Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007], p. 84.) Although the assessments of Brian Walsh and James H. Olthuis are not specifically directed to Pannenberg’s doctrine of the Trinity, they share the same fundamental critique concerning the relationship between God and history: Brian Walsh, “Pannenberg’s Eschatological Ontology,” Christian Scholar’s Review 11 (1982), pp. 248–9; James H. Olthuis, “God as True Infinite: Concerns about Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Systematic Theology, Vol. 1 [in ‘Pannenberg’s Systematic Theology, Vol. 1: A Symposium,’ pp. 304–25],” Calvin Theological Journal 27 (1997), pp. 324–25.

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and economic Trinity we could say the following: the biblical concept of divine faithfulness functions for Pannenberg to secure God’s eternal identity in se while allowing for his real interaction with history. Put differently, for Pannenberg, “faithfulness” qualifies the copula of Rahner’s rule: The immanent Trinity is the economic Trinity—only if “is” does not denote merely logical relation but the acts of the God who is faithful in himself and in all his works. In Pannenberg’s delineation of divine faithfulness we can see an especially transparent instance of his effort to maintain the importance of God’s economy without depleting the transcendent sufficiency of God’s eternal self-identity. Recent treatments of Pannenberg’s mature trinitarian thought have done much to demonstrate the wide-reaching influence of his doctrine of God on all areas of his theology, but none have parsed the relationship between Pannenberg’s account of God’s reconciling action and his doctrine of God. On Pannenberg’s account, divine faithfulness expresses God’s consistency to his self-identity in the eternal relations of the divine persons manifested through his reconciling action toward alienated creation. When God acts for the reconciliation of his creation, his freedom and love take the form of faithfulness, which is manifested in the temporal sequence and continuity of God’s promise-making and promise-keeping, and most tangibly in his reconciling acts. For Pannenberg then, “faithfulness” names the saving movements of God ad extra; God exhibits his eternal love as faithfulness. By moving the doctrine of reconciliation into the register of divine faithfulness, Pannenberg works to secure for the entire presentation an historical tenor such that the process of anticipation, actualization, proclamation, and consummation is inherently necessary for “a more nuanced understanding of what it means that God is love” (not necessary for God’s eternal faithfulness in se but for testimony of his faithfulness to be given).24 Giving extended attention to Pannenberg’s use of such a straightforwardly biblical concept as “faithfulness” raises an important point about my reading of ST. Readers of Pannenberg sometimes overlook the biblical mode of theological reasoning in favor of others, such as the metaphysical, historical, or scientific. Pannenberg employs all these toward offering a systematic presentation of the Christian message. The point that readers do not often make, however, is that Pannenberg is a thoroughgoingly biblical thinker— even if not in ways familiar to those who would consider themselves “biblicists”—in that he often operates in a straightforwardly biblical mode of theological reasoning, substantively employing concepts such as “faithfulness,” “holiness,” or “fellowship” to demarcate a Christian understanding of God. In other words, biblical language does a great deal of work for him. Consideration of Pannenberg’s repeated use of directly biblical concepts 24

Pannenberg, ST1, p. 448.

10

INTRODUCTION

opens avenues for reading ST that are as attuned to Pannenberg’s use of these concepts as they are to his employment of concepts derived from metaphysics or the human and natural sciences. We should not, however, isolate Pannenberg’s employment of the latter from their relationship to his more straightforwardly biblical and theological arguments. In fact, although he employs philosophical, historical, and scientific forms of argument (such as field theories), we should read these arguments according to Pannenberg’s reinterpretation of them in their relation to God.25 More specifically, metaphysical, historical, and scientific data are important for Pannenberg’s presentation in ST, but his procedure allows for arguments that draw upon nontheological sources to be filled out by more self-consciously theological or biblical reasoning. This is not to say that Pannenberg’s dogmatics should be read only according to his use of biblical themes and concepts but that this mode of theological reasoning is equally important to consider along with historical, metaphysical, or scientific themes and concepts. To appreciate Pannenberg’s vision and to evaluate it accordingly is to take ST seriously on its own terms and according to its own internally formed commitments. Because on Pannenberg’s terms a systematic presentation of the Christian gospel is required to meet the truth criterion of “coherence,” in this study I attend to lines of continuity in Pannenberg’s thought within ST. A systematic presentation of Christian doctrine, he explains, must not only be consistent within itself and consonant with the biblical witness but also coherent with regard to all matters that have to be taken into account in such a presentation. The systematic form of presentation corresponds to the requirement of coherence as a criterion of truth, standing as a testimony to truth insofar as it explores and presents the coherence of all issues concerned with affirming the trinitarian God as creator of the universe.26 25

26

See Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Theology Examines Its Status and Methodology,” in The Historicity of Nature: Essays on Science and Theology (ed. Niels Hans Gregerson; West Conshokocken: Templeton Foundation Press, 2008), pp. 7–10. In light of this, Leron Shults’ description appears entirely correct that Pannenberg’s theology involves a “reciprocal relational unity” between a “ ‘fundamental’ theological moment and a ‘systematic’ theological moment played out on a tensional field of existence, a field examined sub ratione Dei, in light of the relation of all things to God” (Leron F. Shults, The Postfoundationalist Task of Theology: Wolfhart Pannenberg and the New Theological Rationality [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999], pp. 17, 203–11). Pannenberg, “Theology Examines Its Status and Methodology,” pp. 7–8. Similarly, Wolfhart Pannenberg, An Introduction to Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1991), pp. 6–8, 12 (hereafter IST); Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 21–6; Wolfhart Pannenberg, Theology and the Philosophy of Science (trans. Francis McDonagh; London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1976; reprint, Wissenschaftstheorie und Theologie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1973), pp. 219–24, 326–45.

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FAITHFUL TO SAVE

Accordingly, reading Pannenberg’s dogmatics well involves careful and persistent attention to the synthetic connections and internal relationships he forms therein. Alertness to this characteristic of ST will frequently guard the reader from interpretive mistakes or misreadings that caricature Pannenberg as, for example, restricting divine freedom, yoking God to history, or failing to do justice to the goodness of creation. Further, in keeping with Pannenberg’s commitment to a coherence theory of truth, I will often in this study track the internal coherence of Pannenberg’s thought over the course of its development leading up to and subsequent to ST. In other words, I occasionally ask, “How does ST fit within Pannenberg’s corpus?” While I do not specifically address the latter sense of coherence at any one point, it remains implicit throughout.27

Summary of Chapters As pointed out above, Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation progresses as a systematic restatement and conceptual expansion upon God’s reconciling action in history. For this reason, I follow the order of Pannenberg’s presentation in ST, which I hope causes my exposition to remain transparent to his. Having established the principles behind the organization of the chapters, I now move to a summary of their content and argument. Through an examination of Pannenberg’s presentation of the Christ-event, Chapter 1 establishes the importance of divine action for Pannenberg’s concept of “reconciliation” out of which my subsequent investigations, enquiries, and analysis emerge. It becomes clear almost immediately that reading Pannenberg on reconciliation requires serious attention to his trinitarian theology and that such attention sheds light on contested questions about his doctrine of the Trinity. Pannenberg delineates the death and resurrection of Christ according to a detailed trinitarian framework such that the entirety of Christ’s self-giving can be viewed as an action of the eternal, triune God of the Bible. Here we find the faithfulness of the Father to the Son and the Son to the Father, a relationship that flows from their eternal relations of mutual faithfulness. In this context I briefly explicate Pannenberg’s doctrine of God and his view of divine infinity, which brings to light Pannenberg’s understanding of divine action as a single— though differentiated—eternal act. Taking careful note of this insight proves instructive throughout the following movements of the study. Pannenberg’s concern that divine reconciliation be explicated as a process surfaces here as well. The anticipation of reconciliation encompasses the incarnation of the Son, his expiation for sin, resurrection from the dead, and ascension to the 27

Grenz’s study follows the same procedure (Stanley J Grenz, Reason for Hope, 2nd ed. [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005], p. 5).

12

INTRODUCTION

Father. As the anticipation of reconciliation, the death and resurrection of Christ point ahead to the work of the triune God to bring about its completion. “The reconciling effect of the death of Jesus” is then, Pannenberg explains, that it gives those who are linked to it the confidence that death will be eschatologically vanquished. The very concept of reconciliation, then, still contains the tension between the future of the eschatological consummation of salvation (Heilsvollendung) and its breaking into the present in such a way that this foretaste carries with it access to the future of salvation. In this manner God anticipates his own eschatological vanquishing of wickedness and evil by his entering our creaturely time that brings about this future victory over evil and the deliverance of his creatures inasmuch as this divine anticipation gives them the chance as creatures, after the overcoming of their alienation from God, to acquire a share in this coming kingdom.28 Chapter 2 is the first of three interrelated chapters which focus on the pneumatological shape of Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation, which is primarily related to the Spirit’s work to “complete” reconciliation in the lived existence of individuals (the pneumatological unfolding of revelation’s meaning). For Pannenberg, the actualization of reconciliation takes place in the Spirit’s work for the realization (Realisierung), or coming into being, of the reconciliation between God and humanity accomplished in the Christevent. In order to examine Pannenberg’s assertion that human independence must be renewed internally rather than externally in order for reconciliation to be actualized, I parse the relationships between the Spirit’s work in creation, reconciliation, and proclamation. In the course of my exposition of Pannenberg’s doctrine of creation and its dogmatic relationship to the doctrine of reconciliation, a further dimension of divine faithfulness comes into view; namely, that natural laws should be interpreted as instances of divine faithfulness, as examples of God’s ongoing, immanent involvement and investment in creation. Further, I propose that based on Pannenberg’s pneumatology one finds his account of human assent to divine revelation not so bereft of the Spirit’s work as some have argued. In Chapter 3 I continue tracing the pneumatological shape of Pannenberg’s presentation by teasing out the relationship between Pannenberg’s doctrine of justification and the church’s “ecstatic” participation in God’s reconciling acts. The chapter highlights again the importance of Pannenberg’s conception of intratrinitarian relations for the texture of divine and human action, in this case pertaining to the Spirit’s work of actualizing reconciliation. Pannenberg maintains a stunning level of consistency throughout his 28

Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 641–2.

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FAITHFUL TO SAVE

doctrine of reconciliation in that all dogmatic moves find their genesis in his doctrine of the Trinity, and his account of the church’s mission is no exception. The difference between this chapter and the previous one is that it begins to press much harder on the character of human agency related to the church’s proclamation to see if Pannenberg maintains his stated emphasis on divine agency while allowing human creatures to truly participate in God’s reconciling acts. Pannenberg’s explication of Christian prayer and discipleship provides avenues for exploring how human agency takes the form of trust and hope in God’s promises and thereby fulfills the essence of human destiny for divine fellowship. God’s kingdom-consummating work frames Christian hope and defines it as essentially eschatological; it looks ahead to what God alone has promised to accomplish, and, as such, it both includes and recasts “this worldly hopes.” As we press into the patterns of encounter that emerge at this point of Pannenberg’s presentation, questions arise about the capacity of Pannenberg’s account of ecclesial participation to fill out the shape of this specific instance of “commerce and communion.” Chapter 4 picks up where the previous chapter left off—with Christian hope—and follows Pannenberg’s stress on the priority of divine reconciling action for properly delineating the doctrine of last things, eschatology proper. The consummation of reconciliation refers finally to the eschatological summing up of all things and the final completion of reconciled relationship between creation and Creator. What began in chapter 11 of ST2 as dogmatic restatement and conceptual expansion upon the “anticipation” of God’s reconciliation in the Christ-event Pannenberg now concludes in chapter 15 of ST3 with reconciliation’s final “completion” (Vollendung) in the eschaton as fellowship with the triune God. It is only when historical reality reaches its totality, Pannenberg repeatedly stresses, that we can speak conclusively about the character and finality of God’s reconciling activity. When eternity enters time and the totality of reality is accomplished with it, only then will God’s identity as the God of love finally be demonstrated without dispute. God’s triune activity brings his kingdom into time and consummates his rule over creation. The Spirit’s action occupies much of our attention as Pannenberg marks the Spirit as the agent of the consummation, the divine person who glorifies believers for eternal fellowship with God. In light of Pannenberg’s description of the final consummation as “totality,” I explore the possibility that participation in God’s eternal life might in fact undermine the very emphasis on human independence Pannenberg works so consistently to maintain. Pannenberg brings his doctrine of final consummation to a close, and the dogmatics with it, by treating theodicy, the consummation of creation, and reconciliation’s completion. The love of God takes center stage here, and Pannenberg makes the connection plain between his doctrine of God and the completion of reconciliation. 14

INTRODUCTION

In the conclusion I draw together several strands of inquiry related to divine and human action. According to Pannenberg, God’s inclusion of the church in his turning to the world defines her participation as genuinely and wholly mutual but (importantly) given. Our constitution in Christ through the Spirit’s ecstatic work incorporates action, but those activities must be understood according to the unique character of God’s action. The question to be put to Pannenberg is not, then, whether he establishes the systematic, conceptual machinery to locate the church’s creaturely activity or if he sufficiently emphasizes the priority of God’s reconciling work. Instead, does Pannenberg’s decision to ground creaturely activity within the sphere of a particular notion of divine infinity (together with its attending description of “participation”) make giving a scripturally thick rendering of the church’s ethical action difficult, or at least not self-evidently necessary? While my principal focus in the study will be the careful reading and exposition of Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation, this bears upon his understanding of the immanent/economic relationship of the Trinity. In Pannenberg’s view, a proper doctrine of God must (necessarily) involve the entire economy of salvation; only with the consummation of the world will God’s love “reach its goal and the doctrine of God reach its conclusion.”29 Consequently, all the doctrines subsequent to the “beginning” of the doctrine of God (marked out in chapter 7 of ST1) serve the development of the understanding that God is love. Without claiming an exhaustive study of Pannenberg’s doctrine of the Trinity, then, my exposition of the actual unfolding of Pannenberg’s account of God’s reconciling acts in history make it well suited to address some questions about the relationship between the immanent and economic Trinity in ST. Two final points: I have gratefully referred to and cited the published English translations of Pannenberg wherever available. In those instances when amendments are made, I have noted them in the footnotes. Second, Pannenberg does not often use inclusive language, and I have made no effort to revise his choice of masculine pronouns, but I have tried to use inclusive language throughout.

29


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1 the anticipation of reconciliation

All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. —2 Cor. 5.181 Since the beginning of Christianity the sign of the Cross has been the sign by which Christians are recognized. And in the act of the Cross itself, nothing reveals the distinctive form of Christianity so concisely as the Cross. . . . Jesus’ mission by the wisdom of God was not his own protection, but his self-abandonment. —Pannenberg, Gegenwart Gottes2

Prior to the appearance of Pannenberg’s dogmatics, the charge that the crucifixion had “almost no role at all” in his theology may have had some truth to it.3 Indeed, Pannenberg had devoted little attention specifically to the theological and soteriological significance of Jesus’ crucifixion outside Jesus—God and Man (hereafter JGM).4 It was not until the publication of “A Theology of the Cross” in 1988, the same year Systematische Theologie Band I was published, that Pannenberg revealed the development of his

1

2

3

4

Unless otherwise noted scripture references are taken from the New Revised Standard Version. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Das Kreuz Jesu und das des Christen (1972),” in Gegenwart Gottes: Predigten (Munich: Claudius, 1973), pp. 176–7. Jon Sobrino, Christology at the Crossroads: A Latin American Approach (trans. John Drury; London: SCM Press, 1978), p. 26; also, Alister McGrath, The Making of Modern German Christology: 1750–1990, 2nd ed. (Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1994), p. 198. See also, Wolfhart Pannenberg, The Apostles’ Creed in Light of Today’s Questions (trans. Margaret Kohl; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1972; reprint, Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2000), pp. 78–89.

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THE ANTICIPATION OF RECONCILIATION

thought on this doctrine and the shape it would take in the subsequent volume of his dogmatics three years later.5 A significant component in “Theology of the Cross” is Pannenberg’s effort to more clearly speak of the crucifixion as an act of God himself and not simply as a tragedy that befell Jesus, as he had in JGM. There the break Pannenberg emphasized between Jesus’ pre-Easter ministry and the events of the crucifixion made it unclear how one could understand the saving work of Christ through his death and resurrection as a divine act.6 Granted, JGM was largely a methodological piece, and on Pannenberg’s own admission it could not fulfill the demands of a systematic presentation of Christ’s person and work. His dissatisfaction was apparent in the afterword to Frank Tupper’s The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg in 1973, where he expressed his intentions to “supplement” his interpretation of Christ’s crucifixion in JGM with a discussion of “the action of God in the cross of Jesus.”7 Pannenberg never took up the task of revising that aspect Grundzüge der Christologie; instead, in the afterword to the fifth German edition (1976) he responded to Gerhard Sauter’s suggestion that he supplement his method “from below” with a corresponding move “from above” by noting the limitations of Christological monographs in general and gestured ahead to his future dogmatics: “To do justice to Sauter’s demand, at least to some extent, is possible only within the context of the doctrine of God and thus within the overall framework of a comprehensive dogmatics.”8 Pannenberg’s earlier uncertainty on how to mark out the presence of divine agency in the crucifixion is significant because it points out his still-developing trinitarianism. During this period of his career it seems Pannenberg was simply unsure how to proceed along the methodological lines he had established and still make “God’s action in Jesus’ history . . . thematic as God’s action.”9 The issue of divine agency related to the crucifixion raised the specter of his undeveloped trinitarian thinking, something Pannenberg would remedy in the ensuing years. 5

6

7

8

9

Wolfhart Pannenberg, “A Theology of the Cross,” Word and World 8, no. 2 (1988), pp. 162–72. More recently, Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Historical Jesus as a Challenge to Christology,” Dialog 37, no. 1 (1998), esp. p. 24; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Der Kreuzestod Jesu befreite dei Menschheit von der Sünd: Versöhnung mit Gott,” Bayernkurier (März 2005), p. 19. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus—God and Man (trans. Lewis Wilkins and Duane Priebe; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1968 [2nd ed., 1977]), pp. 220, 223, 245, 335. Frank Tupper, The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1973), p. 305. A similar shift is seen in Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Teilhabe am Kreuz,” in Das Wort vom Kreuz heute gesagt. Predigten der Gegenwart (ed. Horst Nitschke; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Mohn, 1973), p. 31. Pannenberg, JGM, p. 406. Cf. Gerhard Sauter, “Fragestellungen der Christologie,” Verkündigung und Forschung 11 (1966), p. 61. Pannenberg, JGM, p. 405.

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FAITHFUL TO SAVE

It is significant for our purposes in this chapter to see that at least one impetus behind Pannenberg’s developing trinitarianism was his desire to mark out the crucifixion as a divine act. Pannenberg’s essays “Christologie und Theologie” (1975) and “Der Gott der Geschichte” (1977) indicate that he was working to bring together the conceptual threads for his doctrine of God and the Trinity, on which he would later build ST.10 Pannenberg made these intentions known in a 1981 autobiographical article in The Christian Century, “God’s Presence in History”: “[I feel] more confident to develop a doctrine of God and to treat the subjects of Christian dogmatics in that perspective,” and this would be “more thoroughly trinitarian than any example I know of.”11 In the later essay “Theology of the Cross,” then, we see Pannenberg’s thinking coming together on how to conceive God’s activity in the tragedy of the crucifixion (e.g., 167, 172). His ideas finally take full trinitarian shape in the material occupying our attention here, chapter 11 of ST, “The Reconciliation of the World.” Chapter 11 presents itself to the reader at a hinge in the dogmatics: it appears at the end of one progression of material that started with the conclusion of ST1 and at the beginning of another which leads to the end of the dogmatics. In the concluding paragraphs of ST1 Pannenberg asserts that a systematic treatment of Christian doctrine should be expected to “offer a more nuanced understanding of what it means that God is love,”12 and with that he begins delineating the divine economy in ST2, with the doctrine of creation, followed by those of humanity, sin, the relationship between anthropology and Christology, and the deity of Christ (chapters 7–10). Chapter 11 stands at the end of this explication of humanity’s alienated state and the incarnation of the new Adam, and it is situated at the beginning of a second progression of material in which he marks out the church’s participation in God’s turning in love toward creation and the eschatological completion of reconciliation in the coming kingdom of God (chapters 12–15). As I noted in the introduction, Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation is characterized by his attempt to present God’s reconciling action as a process that includes not only the work of Christ and its significance (what typically is called a doctrine of atonement) but the entire course of its proclamation, appropriation by individuals, and final completion in the kingdom of God. Thus Pannenberg says that the concept of reconciliation, when seen within its “original Pauline thrust and breadth,” can serve as the 10

11

12

Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Christologie und Theologie,” KuD 21 (1975), pp. 159–75; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Der Gott der Geschichte: Der trinitarische Gott und die Wahrheit der Geschichte,” KuD 23 (1977), pp. 76–92. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “God’s Presence in History,” The Christian Century 8, March 11 (1981), pp. 260–3, esp. p. 263. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 448.

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key to an appropriate systematic interpretation of Jesus and of the whole process of salvation being imparted to alienated humanity.13 My approach roughly follows Pannenberg’s order in chapter 11. Tracing the progression of the material this way focuses our attention on the issues Pannenberg addresses and the conceptual relationships he forms as he builds toward his trinitarian depiction of the Christ-event in the final movement of the chapter. In the first section of my exposition, then, I explore Pannenberg’s deployment of reconciliation as a concept to encompass the entire economy of salvation and the issues this raises for him concerning the place of human independence. In Section 2 I follow Pannenberg’s material on the nature of the Christ-event as “representation,” which again draws our attention to Pannenberg’s interest in properly conceiving the relationship between divine reconciling action and human independence (in this case related to Barth’s concept of reconciliation). In Section 3, Pannenberg’s trinitarian formulations gain primary attention, and I consider the fundamental aspects of Pannenberg’s doctrine of God that are worked out in the context of the Christ-event as a triune act.14 This final section is particularly essential for the entire study and necessitates some interruption to the exposition’s flow; in it I give an overview of Pannenberg’s terminology for God’s being, “the true Infinite,” and parse its implications for his concept of divine action. In addition, because the importance of divine “faithfulness” becomes apparent for Pannenberg’s view of the God-world relationship, I introduce and explore how God’s faithfulness—both to himself and to his creatures—functions within the doctrine of reconciliation and more broadly within ST as a whole.

1. The Presence of Salvation and the Concept of Reconciliation In the first two sections of chapter 11 Pannenberg establishes, in conversation with the biblical text and the history of the Christian interpretation of the events of Jesus’ life, the basic parameters of his soteriology. In the first section, “Salvation and Reconciliation,” he takes up the task of delineating in what manner salvation is both a present and future reality and how a correct interpretation of this relationship influences his doctrine of reconciliation. Toward demonstrating that the biblical concept of salvation is both a future and present reality for those who link themselves to Jesus Christ in faith and 13 14

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 403. The salvific effects of reconciliation will be treated but with less emphasis than the character of divine reconciling action. This is not only in keeping with Pannenberg’s own presentation in chapter 11 but with the emphasis of my study as well. For example, ST2, p. 436.

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FAITHFUL TO SAVE

baptism, Pannenberg wrestles with the apparent discrepancy between the Pauline and post-Pauline texts and the Gospel accounts concerning the nature of salvation. Simply based on the biblical meaning of salvation—“wholeness or integrity of life” only found in fellowship with God—salvation is, on the one hand, a future reality, one only attainable outside of and in the culmination of human history.15 In this sense, salvation ultimately depends on the future. On the other hand, Pannenberg notes, Jesus declared the presence of salvation in his proclamation of the kingdom of God (Jn 3.17, 4.22; Heb. 2.3) and likewise in Paul and the post-Pauline literature the idea of present participation in eschatological salvation is apparent (Eph. 2.5, 8; Tit. 3.4-8). Pannenberg resolves the apparent disagreements between the various New Testament witnesses eschatologically: salvation is ultimately an eschatological reality but is made present in Jesus Christ proleptically such that individuals can enter into it now through faith and baptism.16 Accordingly, salvation is linked to God’s eschatological work of consummating history that lies, for creatures, in the temporal future. Pannenberg’s interaction with the biblical witness serves his establishment of “reconciliation” as the primary biblical concept for his soteriology. Reconciliation, when conceived in its “original Pauline thrust and breadth,” as he will demonstrate in the following section, can “serve as the key to an appropriate systematic interpretation of the significance of Jesus and of the whole process of imparting salvation.”17 Because the concept of reconciliation is interpersonal, familial, and necessarily correlated to peacemaking, it comports with Pannenberg’s rendering of humanity’s destiny as a destiny for fellowship with God. When reading Pannenberg’s presentation of salvation here, one soon notes the paucity of material devoted to salvation’s experienced effects; he spends relatively little time explicating the present realities of salvation. At the heart of Jesus’ message, he argues, was that salvation is found with the in-breaking of the rule of God in his person and ministry.18 Jesus proclaimed that salvation was available not only for the Jew but for anyone who would set their hope on the kingdom of God that was both present and at work in him. The distinctive feature of Jesus’ self-understanding in his mission as an expression of the merciful love of God lies in its relation to the eschatological definitiveness which marks his whole message

15 16 17 18

Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 398–99. Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 401–3. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 403. Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 327, 456.

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inasmuch as the lordship of God that is proclaimed already breaks in with him.19 Present salvation is experienced as the forgiveness of sins which manifests itself as an “overcoming of that which separates us from God,”20 transforming the lost from outcasts to recipients of divine fellowship. Creatures were made to live in dependence on their Creator, worshipping him and looking to him as the one true God.21 The fundamental problem of sin, according to Pannenberg’s account, is the refusal of human persons to accept the finitude into which they are created and exist with God in a relationship of dependence. While fellowship with God is our destiny, “we take our destiny of fellowship with God into our own hands with a view to sharing in the divine life.” Pannenberg explains: Being with God is indeed our destiny, yet for this very reason it is a temptation for us (Gen. 3:5). When we snatch it to us as our prey (Phil. 2:6), whether by way of the religious cultus or by emancipation from all religious ties, we miss it. . . . Only by accepting our finitude as Godgiven do we attain to the fellowship with God that is implied in our destiny of divine likeness.22 A present (and central) effect of salvation which draws Pannenberg’s attention is a “redeemed independence” by which believers are “free from this dominion in hope of the new life from God that was manifested in the resurrection of Jesus” and are able to live in dependence on God.23 He describes the relationship between redeemed independence and the relation of dependence as follows: “Fellowship with God and his eternal life gives individuals independence of the world and its powers in all the relation of dependence in which they live their finite lives.” (See further treatment of Pannenberg’s concept of “independence” below.)24 It is precisely because the power of salvation is from the future, Pannenberg writes, that in receiving salvation one is delivered from the detrimental effects of a life completely focused on the present. In striving for self-fulfillment in this world, we close ourselves off to God and his future. Present deliverance in this case takes the form of liberation from the world and its concerns because of the orientation to the future that salvation contains. The future 19

20 21 22 23 24

Pannenberg, ST1, p. 423. Similarly, Pannenberg, ST2, “To participate in the rule of God, to enter the kingdom, is the quintessence of eschatological salvation” (p. 331). Pannenberg, ST2, p. 332. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 171. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 230. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 436. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 436.

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orientation of God’s salvation stands in opposition to a focus of life centered on the present world with its achievements, one filled with a striving for “self-fulfillment in this world.”25 He describes this most clearly in his earlier commentary on the Apostles’ Creed: The forgiveness of sins is, therefore, the consequence of trust in the future of the living God. It is the dawn of future salvation, the light which the saving future of God throws ahead of itself upon our present lives.26 Thus, Pannenberg describes the nature of salvation that can be given to those who link themselves to the death of Christ as “deliverance from the lostness of life [Rettung aus der Verlorenheit seines Lebens] under the powers of sin and death.”27 Here Pannenberg revisits his earlier work in ST on the doctrine of God, creation, and anthropology as it concerns creation’s destiny for fellowship with God, and he links it to the reconciling work of Christ in his death and resurrection. While Pannenberg gives some time to explicating the effects of salvation here, he devotes more attention to this in ST3, related to the work of the Spirit in the community of the reconciled.28 More central to Pannenberg’s presentation in chapter 11 is the nature of reconciliation as a process and God as the agent of reconciliation. Casting soteriology in terms of reconciliation, Pannenberg lays emphasis both on God’s prior action in Christ to reconcile sinful humanity (2 Cor. 5.18) and the process through which the reconciliation established through Christ’s death is brought to completion through the church’s participation in God’s reconciling work. “Reference to a future consummation of salvation persists” in the biblical witness, Pannenberg argues; so¯te¯ria in its full scriptural meaning remains anchored to a future pardon from judgment and the fullness of life that attends fellowship with God and others in God’s kingdom.29 A systematic presentation of God’s reconciling works must, on Pannenberg’s terms, frame a doctrine of reconciliation as a process including the work of God in Christ to make reconciliation a reality for human persons, the interpretation and proclamation of the Christ-event and its appropriation by human persons. As I noted in the introduction, it is important that we attend to Pannenberg’s commitment to the historical process in reconciliation early on. (It is this adherence that creates points of divergence from Barth’s account, as we will see later.) 25 26 27 28 29

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 399. Similarly, Pannenberg, Apostles’ Creed, p. 164. Pannenberg, Apostles’ Creed, p. 166. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 400. See Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 1–257. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 402.

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In the second movement of chapter 11 Pannenberg continues establishing the foundational elements of his doctrine of reconciliation, devoting himself to securing God’s reconciling action as its primary (and most fitting) content. Toward this end he relies primarily on 2 Cor. 5.19 and Rom. 5.10. In 2 Cor. 5.19 he finds (in contrast to Irenaeus, Augustine, and, later, Anselm) Paul’s clear emphasis that “God was the subject of the event of reconciliation” and in Rom. 5.10 the significance of the crucifixion for God’s reconciling work.30 By way of a characteristic trot through the interpretive history of the concept and doctrine of reconciliation, Pannenberg demonstrates how God’s role in reconciliation has been portrayed in divergent ways throughout the history of Christian doctrine. God is either the acting subject of reconciliation and humans are the ones being reconciled, or God is the object of reconciliation, the offended party who must be reconciled to humanity by the Son’s obedience (sacrifice). Surveying the doctrine’s historical progression in the theologies of Irenaeus, Anselm, Augustine, and into the Reformation, Pannenberg finds each presentation wanting. Any formulation (such as Irenaeus’s recapitulation theory) that portrays God as an angry deity who needs appeasement— the recipient of Christ’s reconciling action rather than its primary agent— misinterprets the Pauline understanding of reconciliation.31 For a Christian doctrine of reconciliation to be accurate in the Pauline sense, one must show God to be the active agent in the work of reconciliation. Toward this end, Pannenberg depicts the cross not as an expiatory appeasement of God’s wrath but as the reconciling act of God. In order to establish the cross as God’s act for the reconciliation of the world while maintaining the historically “open” nature of creaturely reconciliation, Pannenberg works to emphasize the dogmatic significance of the past event of the cross. Though Pannenberg appreciates the post-Enlightenment shift away from Anselmic satisfaction theories and the attending reinstatement of the Pauline witness that God did not have to be reconciled but in fact reconciles the world to himself (2 Cor. 5.19), he maintains that in the cases of Friedrich Schleiermacher, C. I. Nitzsch, J. C. K. von Hoffman, and 30

31

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 403; also pp. 404, 405, 407, 410; While praising a return to God’s agency in reconciliation found in later Protestant theology, the stress on the crucifixion seen in Rom. 5.10 was not sufficiently emphasized by theologians such as J. C. Dippel, Schleiermacher, and A. Ritschl (pp. 407–9). Also, Pannenberg makes no reference to Col. 1.20–2, in which a0pokatalla/ssw is used similarly to that in 2 Cor. 5.18–21. While he gives no rationale for this decision, it is likely due to the deutero-Pauline status of this passage in many circles. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 404. As proof of Irenaeus’ error, Pannenberg cites Rom. 5.19, arguing that while it refers to the death of Christ as a sacrificial death and an act of obedience, it says nothing of a “softening of an angry Father.” Pannenberg continues, “As Irenaeus sees it, the obedience of the second Adam reconciles the God offended by the sin of Adam. Paul does not say this” (p. 204).

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Albrecht Ritschl “insufficient account was taken of the fundamental significance of the death of Christ for the Pauline thought of the reconciling of the world by God (Rom. 5.10; 2 Cor. 5:21f., cf. 5:14).”32 In these accounts, divine reconciliation floats free from its historical grounding in the death of Christ and risks being placed “exclusively in the consciousness of believers or in the believing community.”33 Pannenberg’s solution reemphasizes the cross as the “event of reconciliation” carried out by God and distinguishes it from the process of reconciling with God that takes place in the subjectivity of believers. “As God’s act for the reconciliation of the world,” Pannenberg writes: This event is oriented to our entering into the reconciliation that is thus opened up for us. The apostle thus pleads that we be reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:20). He makes this plea in Christ’s stead, for the plea aims at the actualizing of the distinctive meaning of the crucifixion of Christ, its inner telos in the world’s reconciliation.34 What this enables Pannenberg to do is establish the reconciliation of the world as an open process that while remaining incomplete is nonetheless founded upon the event of Christ’s death that has already taken place. Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation thus concerns itself not only with the Christ-event—and the reconciliation there established—but with the proclamation of the apostolic community and the work of the Spirit which brings reconciliation from “anticipation” to “actualization.” On Pannenberg’s view, then, through the apostolic ministry of reconciliation to which Paul refers in 2 Cor. 5.18 the event of reconciliation which has its “origin and center” in Christ’s death “still goes forward”: “To this extent the apostolic ministry of reconciliation is itself reconciliation though it is the reconciliation once and for all effected by Jesus on the cross that is at work through the ministry of the apostles and the proclamation of the church.”35 We have seen both Pannenberg’s intention to establish a renewed emphasis on the historical character of the cross and his related casting of the doctrine of reconciliation in terms of a process awaiting completion. It may be helpful to stand back from Pannenberg’s presentation for a moment in order to observe the continuity between Pannenberg’s stress on reconciliation as a divine act and his understanding of both revelation and the dogmatic task. 32

33 34 35

Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 3 vols., vol. 2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991), p. 407. In Martin Kähler, on the other hand, Pannenberg sees a modern theologian who adequately emphasizes the cross as God’s act for the world’s reconciliation. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 409. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 412. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 413.

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To the former, as early as his monograph Revelation as History (and no less present in his later work), he remains convinced that God reveals himself not by an abstract word but “in his acts in history.”36 When we think of God’s self-revelation we have to think of it as mediated by his action, for that is always the content of biblical ideas about the Word of God, whether it be God’s action in creation, his historical action as it was intimated in the prophetic word, or the action in Jesus of Nazareth to which the primitive Christian kerygma made reference.37 Pannenberg was impressed early on by von Rad’s thesis that the God of ancient Israel was a God of history who shows himself to be the “God who acts”; as God acts in history, promising and fulfilling his promises through his mighty acts in history and time, he demonstrates and thus reveals himself as faithful.38 On this account, Israel viewed history “as a divine action” and spoke of history as the “totality of these acts.”39 For Israel—and for Pannenberg—“there is not some history independent of what God does.”40 The events that constitute the divine action compose “the one all-embracing event of self-revelation” and thus convey God’s being indirectly.41 Though Pannenberg’s commitment to divine revelation in and through historical events is nuanced in ST, he remains dedicated to the centrality of God’s historical acts as the fundamental, primary means of divine revelation.42 36

37 38 39 40

41

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Wolfhart Pannenberg, Rolf Rendtorff, Trutz Rendtorff, and Ulrich Wilkens, eds., Revelation as History (New York: MacMillan, 1968; reprint, Offenbarung als Geschichte. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1961), p. 125. Similarly, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Basic Questions in Theology, 2 vols., vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970), pp. 14–19. See Christian Mostert, “Barth and Pannenberg on Method, Revelation and Trinity,” in Karl Barth: A Future for Postmodern Theology? (ed. Geoff Thompson and Christian Mostert; Hindmarsh: Australian Theological Forum, 2000), pp. 81–3. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 243. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “An Intellectual Pilgrimage,” Dialog 45, no. 2 (2006), p. 187. Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 230–1. William Placher, The Domestication of Transcendence (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), p. 189, n. 25. Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 243–6; Similarly, Wolfhart Pannenberg, Anthropology in Theological Perspective (trans. Matthew J. O’Connell; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1985; reprint, Anthropologie in Theologischer Perspektive. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983), p. 494 (hereafter, ATP). For example: “For all that happens in the world has its beginning in the word but a manifest end, so are the times of the Most High. Their beginning takes place in word and sign, their end in acts and wonders” (Pannenberg, ST1, p. 208. Emphasis mine). See Michael Gilbertson, God and History in the Book of Revelation: New Testament Studies in Dialogue with Pannenberg and Moltmann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 11–15, 145–51.

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This accomplishes, on his view, a necessary shift from modern conceptions that make individuals, institutions, nations, or humanity as a whole the acting subject of history and back toward a properly biblical account of history, in which God is the central subject of history and whose action “embraces all human action.”43 Second, regarding Pannenberg’s understanding of the dogmatic task, given his methodological commitment to history, it should come as no surprise that his doctrine of reconciliation unfolds around the reconciling acts of God in terms of reconciliation’s anticipation, actualization, and consummation. On one front, this approach protests subjectivist accounts of reconciliation (such as Albrecht Ritschl’s) in which reconciliation takes place exclusively in the believer’s consciousness or that of the believing community.44 On another front, as Pannenberg will emphasize later (chapter 14), telling the story of divine reconciliation by recounting God’s reconciling acts combats the tendency of secularist histories to tell history’s story with humanity as its subject; when looking at the events of history, Pannenberg urges us to see instead the God who acts in them.45 An account of history in which God is the central subject, as we have been discussing, necessarily raises the question of the relationship between divine and human action. Pannenberg is sensitive to this issue, and his effort to distinguish his formulation from that of Karl Barth provides a telling instance of his desire to accurately parse this relationship. For Pannenberg, Barth’s is a particularly problematic example of the restriction of “reconciliation” to the Christ-event. While clearly portraying reconciliation as the act of God, Pannenberg finds Barth constraining reconciliation to Christ’s crucifixion as a “self-contained” event and thereby leaving little space to fully understand and appreciate the role of witness and the reception of reconciliation by the individual.46 Pannenberg, rather, interprets the entire process from cross to consummation as constitutive for the event of reconciliation and, in this sense, finds himself more closely aligned with Martin Kähler. For Kähler, reconciliation encompasses both the completed event of the cross and the “appropriating of reconciliation” in the course of history directed by the kingly rule of Christ.47 According to Pannenberg’s criteria then, Kähler more effectively portrays the ongoing work of the exalted Christ and the Spirit which form a “trinitarian nexus of events in salvation history”; Kähler’s account therefore gives greater space for appreciating the 43 44

45 46

47

Pannenberg, ST1, p. 231. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 412. See Albrecht Ritschl, The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation (trans. H. R. Mackintosh and A. B. Macaulay; Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2004; reprint, London: T&T Clark [1902]), pp. 72–9. Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 499–517. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 413. Pannenberg notes the following instance: Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics (trans. G. W. Bromiley; vol. IV/1; London: T&T Clark, 1956), p. 76. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 414.

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importance of apostolic witness.48 Also important, Pannenberg argues that Kähler, in viewing reconciliation as running “through time and history,” more effectively distinguishes between the establishment of reconciliation and its consummation.49 However, Pannenberg finds Kähler wanting in a place that is especially telling of where Pannenberg’s account will go from here: Kähler’s use of “appropriation” (Zueignung) and “offer” (stiften) to render the necessity that reconciliation be actualized in human recipients. For Pannenberg, this language is too “weak” if God is actually the one who establishes reconciliation in Christ’s death and who is the agent of its completion.50 In his interaction with Barth and Kähler, we can see Pannenberg simultaneously emphasizing two realities: (1) God alone has established reconciliation in the death and resurrection of Christ, thus the event of reconciliation is a completed reality; (2) reconciliation requires an historical process of completion, the movement from “anticipation” to “actualization” in its human recipients. Getting right the patterns of encounter between divine and human action is vital to Pannenberg here. On one hand, Pannenberg finds in Barth’s account too little space to appreciate the importance of creaturely witness; on the other hand, Kähler’s language of “appropriation” seems to undervalue the ongoing work of God in bringing reconciliation to its consummation. Thus Pannenberg explains: The more decidedly we think of the reconciliation of the world as an act of God himself, the more urgently the question arises as to the role of the human recipients. Reconciliation cannot take place unless it happens to them. Do we not have to regard not merely God’s reconciling act but also its human acceptance as constitutive for the event?51 In asking this question, Pannenberg anticipates the attention he will give to the character of divine action and the place of those being reconciled. Here the issue comes to the fore in terms of Christ’s death as “representation,” but it will surface later in relation to the Spirit’s work to “complete” (vollendet) reconciliation, the church’s “participation” in God’s reconciling acts, and finally the participation of believers in the divine life as the fulfillment of their destiny. I will address the latter two points in subsequent chapters; at present we must press deeper into Pannenberg’s concept of “representation.” Barth and Kähler both speak of the human recipients of God’s reconciling act as having a part in the event by being represented, but Pannenberg fears 48 49 50

51

Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 414–15. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 414. Pannenberg, ST2, 414, n. 59. Similarly, Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The God of History,” The Cumberland Seminarian 19, nos. 2 and 3 (Winter/Spring 1981), pp. 30–2. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 415.

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this form of representation destroys rather than renews creaturely independence. In contrast, Pannenberg works to preserve an account of human independence by demonstrating how reconciliation involves not its destruction but its transformation and renewal. But can we be represented by the Son of God as recipients of the act, as sinners and enemies of God, so that he accepts the offer of reconciliation on our behalf? Neither in Barth nor in Kähler do we find a satisfactory answer to this question, i.e. an answer that does justice to the situation of the recipients as human beings, as sinners in need of reconciliation.52 Pannenberg defines and presents the concept of representation in such a way that it affirms human independence, even transforms it, and develops it into a thoroughly trinitarian understanding of the cross.

2. Representation as the Form of the Salvation Event In part 3 of chapter 11 “Representation as the Form of the Salvation Event,” Pannenberg picks up his argument from the previous section that God’s reconciling activity must be understood as extending beyond the Christevent to include apostolic proclamation, the process of its reception, and eschatological consummation (and thus the scope of a doctrine of reconciliation must extend accordingly). His intention in this section is to work progressively toward a trinitarian account of God’s reconciling activity in the Christ-event. This progression takes shape by way of three subsections that expand upon the form of Christ’s work on the cross and, in so doing, raise the critical questions to which such a conceptual expansion is required to attend. The tenor of the work at this stage is driven by Pannenberg’s intention to establish a conceptual relationship between Christ’s work for alienated humanity and the human recipients of Christ’s work such that God himself is found to be active not only in the establishing of reconciliation (“anticipation”) but in its proclamation and reception as well. We could put Pannenberg’s interests in part 3 another way: how can reconciliation be understood so that divine reconciling activity is found to include its reception by creatures and the participation of the reconciled in its proclamation? With this in mind we will move somewhat quickly through the first two subsections of chapter 11 toward a more involved discussion of

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Pannenberg’s interaction with this question in the third, “Representation and Liberation.”53

2.1. Christ Died “for” Our Sins: Representation and Expiation In the first subsection of part 3, Pannenberg considers the interpretation of Christ’s death as an “expiatory death” in light of the doubtfulness that Jesus himself would have considered his own impending death this way. Once Pannenberg arrives at the exegetical conclusion that Jesus died as a representative of sinful humanity, he pursues the interpretation and evaluation of Jesus’ representation (Stellvertretung) as “expiation” in the following section. Dogmatic theology proceeds best, Pannenberg contends, without presupposing Jesus’ knowledge of his impending death or that he regarded it as an expiatory sacrifice (evidenced in passages such as Mk 10.45 and those of the Lord’s Supper). Consistent with his thoroughgoing skepticism of the Synoptic tradition’s historical reliability, Pannenberg concedes that Jesus may have considered a violent end to his ministry, but it is doubtful that he understood his death as “for us” (expiation). Every instance of “for us” does not imply expiation (such as 1 Cor. 11.24). Instead, only when passages that describe Jesus’ death as “for us” are brought into direct connection with “our sins” should they be regarded as witnessing to expiation.54 For Pannenberg, 2 Cor. 5.21 is a particularly important and often-referenced passage from which he argues that more is being said than simply, “Jesus gave his life for us.” Instead, Pannenberg finds a “change of places” occurring here.55 Toward delineating the sense and significance of Jesus’ place-taking, Pannenberg employs the language of Stellvertretung rendered variously in ST as “representation” or “substitution.” This concept is important for Pannenberg, and he circumspectly clarifies his intended meaning for it. The translators of JGM translate Stellvertretung consistently as “substitution,”56 while Geoffrey Bromiley renders it in ST most regularly as “representation” but with enough variation that it at least raises the issue of its translation. In fact, Bromiley is content to put forward both “representation” and “substitution” as legitimate renderings in several instances as evidence of its elasticity. In one instance (“so daß der Gedanke der 53

54

55 56

In fact, the progression of Pannenberg’s argument in chapter 11 is a fine example of his presentation throughout the dogmatics. See Pannenberg’s explanation of his method in the preface to ST1, pp. xi–xii. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 417. Such as 1 Cor. 15.3; 2 Cor. 5.21; Rom. 4.25, 8.22, 31; 1 Pet. 2.21, 24, Gal. 2.20, 3.13; also the ransom imagery of 1 Tim. 2.6 and Tit. 2.4 are clear instances of Jesus’ death being portrayed as expiatory, for the sins of humanity. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 418. Pannenberg, JGM, p. 258.

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Stellvertretung”) he gives the reader a sense of both meanings: “the idea of representation or substitution,” and Bromiley repeats the same procedure elsewhere.57 One could say that “substitution” or “representation” are both, on one level, valid translations for Stellvertretung in general, but for Pannenberg the most accurate rendering depends on context: Is Pannenberg referring to the form of the Christ-event (representative death) or the ground of its effectiveness (vicarious place-taking or substitution)? Pannenberg’s article “A Theology of the Cross” demonstrates the elasticity Stellvertretung has for him. In a section titled “Vicarious Death as Inclusive Substitution,” he refers to the crucifixion, saying, “ ‘Inclusive substitution’ refers to a situation where somebody enters into our condition in order to share it and thereby changes it in our favor. Such is the case with Jesus: He entered our condition of mortal life and shared the fate of death in such a way as to change its significance for all of us.”58 In Systematische Theologie he describes the vicarious nature of Jesus’ death as a “change in places” and similarly in “Theology of the Cross”: “Thus it can be said that God caused him to appear in the position of the sinner.”59 In the end, whether Stellvertretung is rendered “representation” or “substitution” depends on how clearly Pannenberg is emphasizing the aspect of “change of places.” This is important to note because of Pannenberg’s intention to preserve an account of divine reconciliation that demonstrates the preservation, even transformation, of human independence. In this case, as we will see below, language matters to Pannenberg; in order to put forward a clear account of the restoration of creaturely independence, Pannenberg is intent to avoid the possibility that creaturely independence could be compromised through adopting the idea of exclusive substitution.60 In what sense then is Jesus’ death expiation for sin? Within society, if one person dies “for” another in order to spare them, we have an example of “exclusive” representation; they take their punishment onto themselves to prevent the death of another.61 Pannenberg justifies the concept through the universal occurrence of cohuman solidarity within society in which some represent others: “In a working society the different members do particular jobs for others, and all the members are thus reciprocally related to one 57

58 59

60

61

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 465, n. 76 (Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 2, p. 419). Emphasis mine. Similarly, Pannenberg, ST2, p. 422 (Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 2, p. 467); Pannenberg, ST2, p. 421 (Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 2, p. 466). Pannenberg, “A Theology of the Cross,” pp. 171–2. Emphasis mine. Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 2, p. 418; Pannenberg, “A Theology of the Cross,” p. 168. For the view that Stellvertretung be rendered most accurately as “representation” see Tupper, The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg, p. 160, n. 91; Grenz, Reason for Hope, 2nd ed., p. 162. Similarly, Pannenberg, JGM, pp. 264–80.

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another.” Because all members of the society are related to each other in this way, the “benefits that the acts of some confer and the harm that the failings of others cause all affect the society as a whole.”62 This type of dying “for” another does not, however, necessarily involve expiation, and it differs from Jesus’ death. It does not prevent others from physically dying (exclusive) as a consequence for sin. On the contrary, Jesus’ death is expiatory in that by linking one’s death to his through baptism, one’s death is anticipated and transformed. While Jesus’ death does not preserve someone from their own physical death, it does “preserve them for eternal life in the judgment of God.”63 In this way, then, Jesus’ death is inclusive with exclusive elements. It is exclusive in the sense that no person must ever again die for the sins of the world; it is inclusive in that, although others must still physically die as a consequence for sin, their deaths are included in his death through faith and baptism and thus transformed into “the hope of participation in the life that was already manifested in Jesus in his resurrection.”64 Pannenberg will say elsewhere: The reconciling death of Christ is not a payment that Christ made to God in place of others. . . . Christ’s death represents before God the death of all [repräsantiert er vor Gott den Tod aller]. . . . Christ is not the representative of humanity insofar as he is outside it but insofar as he is it.65 Having an interpretation of Jesus’ death as representation in hand, Pannenberg develops the content and nature of that death as “expiation” in the second section, “Expiation as Vicarious Penal Suffering.” The “logic” of Jesus’ expiatory death is, for Pannenberg, vicarious suffering. Jesus’ death is an act of representation precisely because in it Jesus suffers vicariously for others the punishment of death as exclusion from fellowship with God. Jesus suffered in the place of the guilty who, through their sin, had alienated themselves from their destiny for participation in divine fellowship. Jesus did not suffer death on account of his own sins but died on behalf of others “as an expression of the mercy and saving love of God” for his creatures (als Ausdruck des Erbarmens und der rettenden Liebe Gottes).66 62 63 64 65 66

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 419. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 420. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 420; similarly, p. 430. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 429 (Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 2, p. 475). Pannenberg, ST2, p. 424 (Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 2, p. 470). Pannenberg conceives of God’s righteousness as nonpenal because he finds it difficult to reconcile with God’s goodness (Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 433–6) and therefore describes Christ’s vicarious suffering as nonpenal as well. This is not to say Pannenberg does away with divine condemnation and judgment, but the emphasis is placed on judgment as “purification” (see, Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 626–30).

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Pannenberg interprets passages such as Gal. 3.13, 2 Cor. 5.21, and Rom. 8.3 as likely finding their origin in the crucifixion, in which Jesus is made the sinner and comes under the curse of the law. Paul could thus perceive in the Christ-event that God not only made Jesus to be sin but also had him bear in our place (and not merely in that of his Jewish judges or the whole Jewish people) the penalty that is the proper penalty of sin because it follows from its inner nature, i.e. the penalty of death as the consequence of separation from God.67 Pannenberg’s interaction with Walter Kasper’s portrayal of the Christevent, Jesus the Christ, is instructive. Kasper describes Jesus as “the man for others” and in “solidarity” with humanity.68 Kasper uses the language of “representation” as well, contending for Jesus’ solidarity with humanity— the man for others—based on Jesus’ identity as the “one who has wholly become our brother,” a reality he finds clearly portrayed in passages such as Mk 6.34 and Mt. 8.20.69 As the “man for other men,” wholly identified with humanity, Jesus’ death changes the place of humanity in which “our poverty is transformed into riches.”70 Pannenberg differentiates himself from Kasper on two fronts. First, Kasper’s account does not emphasize the cross as a completely unique event but only as a special instance of Jesus’ being “for us” in his earthly existence. Pannenberg argues more strongly that the crucifixion must be understood not only as a “special instance” of solidarity with others but as the entire purpose for the Son’s incarnation. Second, toward emphasizing Jesus’ solidarity with humanity Kasper undermines the fact that Jesus is “the man for God,” which is precisely what Pannenberg stresses throughout: [H]e was the man for others only insofar as he was sent to attest God’s coming rule to them and to demonstrate with the dawning of this rule in his own work the love of God for creatures, even for the creatures that were lost. Since his obedience to his divine mission, even to the death on the cross, meant the giving of his life for the world, the whole of his earthly course could later be construed in this sense.71 This interpretation is only made possible, Pannenberg contends, by interpreting Jesus’ death as “expiation.” 67 68

69 70 71

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 426. Walter Kasper, Jesus the Christ (trans. V. Green; New York; Ramsey; Toronto: Paulist Press, 1976), p. 216. Kasper, Jesus the Christ, p. 217. Kasper, Jesus the Christ, p. 217. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 424.

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Yet it is not immediately clear how Jesus’ death can be understood as universally significant for Pannenberg. In other words, how does he contend for the universal significance of the Christ-event, that it could apply to all people in all times? Pannenberg’s argument for the universality of Jesus’ death appeals to the involvement of the Jewish people, specifically the Jewish judges who condemned him for blasphemy. If Jesus’ death was interpreted “for us” solely on Jewish concepts, such as the suffering and death of the righteous, then his death was efficacious only for the Jewish people.72 Yet this clearly was not the view of the primitive Christian community. Consistent with Pannenberg’s overall theological program, the resurrection plays a central role here. In this case it demonstrates that Jesus suffered and died in the place of his accusers. It does so because the resurrection lays bare that Jesus is vindicated by God from the charges of blasphemy leveled against him.73 One might say the tables are turned; those who condemned Jesus had “wrongly arrogated to themselves divine authority” against the Son of Man himself. In the condemnation of the Jewish authorities, Pannenberg finds a demonstration of the universal human situation in sin: sin as the rejection of finitude, striving to be our own gods by throwing off God’s rule. The resurrection serves for Pannenberg, then, as an event of justification: those who accused him were actually accusing themselves; they, not Jesus, were the blasphemers. Therefore, while his judges were not aware of it, Jesus “literally died in the place of those who condemned him.”74 This reversal establishes Jesus’ death as a death of representation for them and for all humanity. The one who was handed over as a blasphemer and executed as an agitator suffered death in the place of, and on behalf of, all those who as sinners live in arrogated equality with God and actual rebellion against him and who thus bring death upon themselves. As the Son of God suffered vicariously in his flesh the condemnation of sinners (Rom. 8:3), he did it for all (2 Cor. 5:14), and triumphed for all.75 Within this conception, the importance of the resurrection is obvious: the resurrection is the divine confirmation that Jesus died in the place of his 72

73 74 75

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 425. Pannenberg maintains, however, that there is not only still the opportunity for the Jewish people to experience reconciliation. Because the message of Jesus related to the coming judgment of God and the imminence of his rule and kingdom in his person and ministry, Jesus’ death is intimately related to his ministry. Thus, even though the Jews participated in the death of Jesus, “access to eschatological salvation is still open on the condition of acceptance of the eschatological message of Jesus and confession of Jesus” (Pannenberg, ST2, p. 426). Pannenberg, ST2, p. 425. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 425. Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 426–7.

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accusers.76 And beyond the Jewish people, the early Christian confession that Christ’s death was decidedly efficacious for all, Pannenberg contends, likely sprung from the Roman involvement in his crucifixion.77 We have reached the point in Pannenberg’s presentation at which the progression of his central concerns crystallizes. The contention that 76

77

Cf. Neie, Doctrine of Atonement, pp. 138–40, 174. Neie questions Pannenberg’s argument in JGM for the “inversion of standards” revealed through the resurrection. Essentially, he doubts that one can reasonably conclude the judges’ guilt, as Pannenberg does based on the retroactive force of the resurrection (pp. 138–40, 174). Can the judges be declared guilty retroactively from the standpoint of the resurrection if they acted in accordance with the law as they knew it before the resurrection? On the basis of “ethical sensitivity” and the “principles of civil rights” one cannot be later confirmed guilty for an action that at the time committed was not a punishable act (p. 138). In the case of Jesus, when the Jewish judges declared him guilty of blaspheming, they were only acting according to the law of God and putting to death a blasphemer (p. 139). One would have to demonstrate historically, Neie argues, that the Jewish authorities were able to discern Jesus’ real identity, which in fact Pannenberg fails to demonstrate with necessary historical proof (p. 174). Working only from Pannenberg’s writings prior to 1979, Neie failed to adequately appreciate the ontological implications of the future within Pannenberg’s thought (the metaphysical foundations of which Pannenberg would more fully explicate in Metaphysics and the Idea of God [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1988]. Hereafter MIG). For Pannenberg, the essence of any finite entity is determined by its future. Just as he contends that the resurrection not only enables us to know that Jesus was the Son of God, but also decides that he was the Son of God, the resurrection has equivalent determinative effects (ST2, p. 303, n. 92). Because the principle of “retroactive permanence” applies not only to the Christ-event but involves a matter of “universal ontological relevance” it also applies to the situation of the Jewish authorities and their guilt (Christian Mostert, God and the Future: Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Eschatological Doctrine of God (London: T&T Clark, 2002), p. 223, quoting Pannenberg, JGM, p. 136). “The significance of an event as we see it later (in which it is always a matter of its ti en einai),” Pannenberg explains, “is not independent of the events in the light of whose (provisional) conclusion we look back upon it” (ST2, p. 303). Pannenberg’s claim for the retroactive force of the resurrection is in many respects the same in the dogmatics as it was in JGM. The guilt of the judges is determined retroactively by the resurrection, in which Jesus is revealed to have been innocent of blasphemy and the Jewish authorities were determined guilty: “[The judges] themselves had wrongly arrogated to themselves divine authority against God in the person of him whom he had sent. Thus the sentence of death that they had passed on Jesus ought in truth to have been passed on them” (Pannenberg, ST2, p. 425). In light of the resurrection, Jesus is revealed to have actually died in their place. Within Pannenberg’s dogmatics, then, he can conclude that the Jewish authorities were declared guilty retroactively by the resurrection without committing the error Neie asserts, namely, breaking human expectations concerning “ethical sensitivity” and the “principles of civil rights.” Whether one agrees with Pannenberg’s conception of retroactive ontology is a secondary matter in this case. He is consistent to his system in this case, which Neie fails to appreciate. Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 425–6.

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a doctrine of reconciliation must frame the reconciling action of God as a process transcending—while including—the work of Christ is centrally important for Pannenberg’s entire account of God’s reconciling works. Concerning Christ’s death as representation and expiation, this means that God’s act of reconciliation encompasses both the work of Christ as representation and expiation and, critical for Pannenberg, the inclusion of those for whom Jesus died in just this particular death. Those having been represented by Christ on the cross may now link their death to his and in so doing be reconciled to God—not finally reconciled, but to experience the reconciliation accomplished in the Christ-event. In this sense, Pannenberg can refer to the work of Christ as the “anticipation” of reconciliation that must be “actualized” through the history of interpreting, receiving, and understanding the death of Christ and subsequently linking one’s life to Christ in faith and baptism. In the death of Christ, a change of places occurred, but only when an individual is linked to the death of Christ through faith and baptism “does the expiation that the death of Jesus makes possible actually come into force for individuals.” “The starting point for the apostle’s message of reconciliation,” Pannenberg writes, “lies in the atoning death of Christ,” but “the expiatory effect of Christ’s death is not just an objectively closed event. It becomes fruitful for individuals only as their own deaths are linked to that of Christ.”78 Reconciliation is thus a process of God’s acts over time, and a doctrine of reconciliation must encompass, as Pannenberg’s does, the entirety of God’s acts through the Christ-event, its proclamation, reception (i.e., actualization), and finally its consummation. However, this raises a question for Pannenberg concerning the place of those being represented. In pursuing this question Pannenberg attends to the intersection of divine and human action, to the commerce and communion between the Reconciler and those being reconciled. How does “being represented” by Christ in his death not replace or suppress the independence for which individuals were created? The flow of the chapter has been moving toward this question because, on Pannenberg’s view, it can only be solved with a trinitarian account of Christ’s death and resurrection.

2.2. Inclusive Representation and the Independence of Those Being Represented Pannenberg argues that Jesus’ death is better conceived as “inclusive representation” than the “exclusive representation” of vicarious satisfaction. The former “is not limited to any one interpretation of the death of Jesus” and can cover his entire life and proclamation, much the same as Paul’s concept of Christ as the second Adam.79 78 79

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 428. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 430.

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For Pannenberg, Jesus is the “paradigm of all humanity,” who through his acceptance of death as the punishment for sin rescues fallen creatures from the penalty of death.80 Humans refuse the finitude of their existence and “demand to be the center and goal of all things” (Augustine’s amor sui).81 Their self-love is the reversal of the independence for which they were created, a relationship in which creatures look to God as the eternal God and depend on him, worshipping him and looking to him as the only true God.82 Rebelling against their finitude and rejecting the relationship of dependence that would enable fellowship with God (sin), humans become subject to death—alienation from God and the destiny of fellowship for which they were created. Within this conception of the Creator’s intention for fellowship and the nature and consequences of sin, Pannenberg’s view of the significance of Christ’s death and resurrection takes the shape of a modified recapitulation theory (though he never says as much).83 Pannenberg’s interaction with Irenaeus and Anselm is telling. Pannenberg criticizes Irenaeus only on the grounds that he deviated from Paul in presenting the Father as the object, rather than subject, of Christ’s reconciling obedience as in 2 Cor. 5.19.84 His appraisal of Anselm is similar: the “basic aspect” of Christ’s work through which individuals are changed into the New Adam is subordinated to the achievement of the God-man for the Father.85 It is important for Pannenberg that while Irenaeus and Anselm had struck upon the “basic aspect” of Christ’s work, they misunderstood the nature of divine action, seeing God as the object rather than the subject of reconciliation (ST2, pp. 404, 431). Pannenberg’s modification is found in his delineation of the mechanism, or action, through which Jesus recapitulates our sinful existence. As in the classical view, Jesus’ death is the mechanism, but on Pannenberg’s account it was Jesus’ acceptance of his finitude that mirrored, or expressed, the eternal self-distinction of the Son from the Father.86 Two essential aspects of Pannenberg’s account of reconciliation’s anticipation emerge at this point. The first is Pannenberg’s interest that his formulation mark out the preservation (even transformation) of human independence and the second is the trinitarianism implicit in his view of Christ’s death.

80

81 82 83

84 85 86

Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 274–5; Similarly, Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Death and Sin,” Theology Digest 51, no. 1 (2004), pp. 35–40. Pannenberg, “Death and Sin,” p. 38. Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 171, 230. On this point, see Svein Rise, The Christology of Wolfhart Pannenberg: Identity and Relevance (trans. Brian MacNeil; Lewiston: Mellen University Press, 1997), pp. 38–48, 249–73. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 404. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 431. Consider, for example, Pannenberg, ST2, p. 325.

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Related to the former, Pannenberg is intent that marking out the character of divine action not abolish, eliminate, or suppress our independence. A telling example of this is Pannenberg’s move to distance himself again from Barth, specifically Barth’s version of inclusive representation. The question with which Pannenberg wrestles could be put thus: Does Christ’s act of “representation” destroy the independence of those being represented? For Pannenberg, Barth exemplifies this destruction, which results in the total disappearance of independent humanity. On Pannenberg’s reading of Barth, Jesus Christ alone is the man before God, [and] he has so taken our place and acted and suffered in our favor that we can add to what he has done nothing of our own. This means the replacement and suppression of those in whose place the Son of God came.87 Pannenberg fears that just as the exclusive-satisfaction view can lead to the replacement of moral persons, so inclusive representation can have the same result if not properly conceived. Instead, Pannenberg argues, Jesus is the “definitive actualizing of our destiny as the incarnation of the Son,” but Jesus’ “definitiveness leaves room . . . for the individuality of others. They are not suppressed or eliminated.”88 By accepting death as the mark of creaturely finitude Jesus made room for others, and it is precisely this which makes his death inclusive: “Because the Son dies in the particularity of his human existence all others in their otherness are not crowded out by him as though his human particularity were the measure of all things and excluded all others.”89 In other words, the Son’s acceptance of finitude on the cross represents humanity by opening for them the opportunity to do the same; they can accept their own finitude and enter into a proper relationship with God, one of redeemed independence that takes the form of dependence on God. Through receiving redeemed independence believers are “free from this dominion in hope of the new life from God that was manifested in the resurrection of Jesus,” for they are able to live in dependence on God.90 Jesus’ form of representation includes the individual by making possible their acceptance of finitude—the representative aspect of Christ’s death is implicit in the sense that it opens the way for it to be “actualized” by us in faith and baptism.91 While the finished work of reconciliation was completed on the cross (the “anticipation” 87

88 89 90 91

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 431. The same concerns emerge in Pannenberg’s interaction with Dorothee Sölle (Pannenberg, ST2, p. 432; cf. Dorothee Sölle, Christ the Representative [trans. David Lewis; London: SCM Press, 1967], pp. 86–8). Pannenberg, ST2, p. 433. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 434. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 436. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 437.

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of reconciliation), its actualization takes place in the independence of its recipients. Pannenberg uses this line of reasoning to raise questions that only a trinitarian account of the Christ-event might answer: Can the significance of the Christ-event be restricted to the crucifixion as a past event, or does its significance in some real sense include the actualization of Christ’s implicit representation in the free entry of those being reconciled? If reconciliation is best understood as a process or continuum moving toward completion, then how do we understand the entire process as a divine act? How should we understand God’s action in the proclamation relative to its anticipation in the Christ-event? Pannenberg contends that only a trinitarian description of reconciliation—one that includes not only the Father who offered up his Son but also the action of the Son and the Spirit—can “help us understand our human participation in the making of reconciliation” and further “clarify the relation between exclusive and inclusive representation in Christ’s reconciling death.”92 Because so much of ST is conditioned by Pannenberg’s trinitarianism, in this study I repeatedly give attention to Pannenberg’s doctrine of God. A ready example is Christ’s acceptance of death. As I noted above, Jesus’ acceptance of finitude through his death mirrored, or expressed, the eternal self-distinction of the Son from the Father, an act of setting himself apart and glorifying the Father in the Spirit. When reading Pannenberg, getting right the ordering between immanent and economic Trinity is very important, and interpreters have been divided on just this issue. As outlined above, on Pannenberg’s view, alienated creatures are reconciled to God through Christ’s death precisely because in his death Jesus “definitively showed himself to be the Son of God” and in dying “gives us room alongside himself even after death.”93 Jesus accepted the consequence of sin and death, and in doing so accepted his finitude before God the Father. Jesus opens access, then, for others to accept their finitude by bowing before God and through faith and baptism to have their death transformed into a hopeful death.94 The obedience that led Jesus to the cross is, on Pannenberg’s view, paradigmatic for all of us. Jesus is the New Adam, after whose image we are to be renewed, and part of his obedience was the acceptance of his finitude. Pannenberg’s presentation has raised the critique that he inadvertently outlines God’s collapse into, or restriction to, the process of history. Paul Molnar has been one of the more outspoken English speaking critics along these lines.95 The following passage related to Christ’s deity and humanity 92 93 94 95

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 437. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 434. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 434. Most recently, Paul Molnar, Incarnation and Resurrection: Toward a Contemporary Understanding (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007).

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illustrates Molnar’s critique, and of all the passages with which Molnar interacts it is fitting because it parallels the context of our present discussion. At the beginning of chapter 10, Pannenberg writes: If the human history of Jesus is the revelation of his eternal sonship, we must be able to perceive the latter in the reality of the human life. The deity is not an addition to this reality. It is the reflection that the human relation of Jesus to God the Father casts on his existence, even as it also illumines the eternal being of God. Conversely, the assuming of human existence by the eternal Son is not to be seen as the adding of a nature that is alien to his deity. It is the self-created medium of his extreme self-actualization in consequence of his free self-distinction from the Father, i.e. a way of fulfilling his eternal sonship (also als Vollzugsform seines ewigen Sohnseins).96 Molnar charges that Pannenberg here fails to distinguish the eternal Son from the historical self-actualization of Jesus and has, therefore, robbed the doctrine of the immanent Trinity the ability to secure the Son’s eternal being.97 Molnar is particularly critical of Pannenberg’s language of “fulfillment” and charges the following: “How are we to conceive of the incarnation as a special new direct act of God coming into history if it is envisioned as a way for the Son to fulfil his own Sonship?”98 It would be unfair to reduce Molnar’s critique to one passage; his argument is multifaceted, and he takes Pannenberg to task on various fronts. However, his assessment of this particular passage should be pressed because it fails to grasp Pannenberg’s intention in describing the relationship between the eternal Son and Jesus. And on precisely this point, the relationship between the immanent and economic Trinity, Molnar’s critique anticipates the major issues I will tease out in the following section. First, on purely linguistic grounds the rendering of Vollzugsform as “a way of fulfilling his eternal sonship” is misleading and might have been better translated as “the expression” or “the unfolding of his eternal Sonship” based on the force of Pannenberg’s argument. If we pay close enough attention, the flow of Pannenberg’s thought indicates his intentions. Pannenberg began this argument by stating that in our consideration of the deity of the man Jesus we must remember that his eternal sonship “precedes his historical existence” and must be regarded as “the creative basis of his human existence.” Pannenberg says elsewhere in ST2 that the history of Jesus is the “revelation” of his “eternal sonship,” in which we are able to perceive the

96 97 98

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 325. Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 298–9. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 299.

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work of the eternal Son, and not the coming into being of the Son.99 Further, it should not be overlooked that Pannenberg employs a light metaphor here; the life of Jesus “illumines” the eternal being of God, it does not determine it. When taken together, if the language of Vollzugsform is read according to Pannenberg’s flow of thought, then it should be read not as the Son’s fulfilling, completing, or ratifying his eternal Sonship (as Molnar finds problematic) but his expression of it and its revelation thereby. On this reading, the incarnation mirrors the eternal relationship of mutual self-distinction between the Father and the Son. Thus, while Molnar charges that passages such as this one indicate that Pannenberg’s doctrine of the immanent Trinity is unable to “inform key elements of his thinking,” it appears quite the opposite.100 On all accounts Pannenberg’s conception of the eternal relations of mutual self-distinction among the divine persons determines and shapes his understanding of Jesus’ relation to God (and the same is true for the Spirit). These are not small interpretive claims, and they bear upon various points in our study to follow. With this in mind, we might begin our study of Pannenberg’s trinitarian account of the Christ-event (the final part of chapter 11) by tracing the broad outlines of his doctrine of the Trinity. Doing so illumines the relationship between God’s being in se and ad extra and provides opportunity to further outline different interpretations on this front. It should also be kept in mind that one contention of my study is that an exploration of Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation opens up new lines of inquiry into the discussions concerning the relationship between the immanent and economic Trinity in ST. The following discussion will progressively move in this direction.

3. The Triune God as Reconciler of the World 3.1. The Unity of the Godhead Pannenberg argues for the unity of the Godhead—and hence the unity between the immanent and economic Trinity—based on his contention that “love constitutes the concrete unity of the divine life in the distinction of its personal manifestation and relations” and that this love may only be known “in the historical revelation of God in Jesus Christ.”101 Doing so, 99 100 101

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 325. Emphasis mine. Molnar, Incarnation and Resurrection, p. 388, n. 29. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 432. Also, “The thought of love makes it possible conceptually to link the unity of the divine essence with God’s existence and qualities and hence to link the immanent and economic Trinity in the distinctiveness of their structure and basis” (p. 447).

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Pannenberg reasons, “permits us to think of God’s relation to the world as grounded in God,” more specifically in the relations of mutual distinction among the persons of the Godhead.102 Importantly, he believes the manner in which he does so retains the primacy of the immanent Trinity and thus God’s freedom without sequestering God from intimate interaction with creation—something I will argue below points to an asymmetrical relationship between the immanent and economic Trinity in ST. We might unpack these claims through briefly introducing the three constitutive elements of Pannenberg’s doctrine of the Trinity: self-distinction, mutual dependence, and the relationship between the immanent and economic Trinity. First, by arguing for the mutual self-distinction of the Father, Son, and Spirit as the basic means of distinguishing between the trinitarian persons, Pannenberg believes he returns to the initial methodology of Christian reflection. Athanasius and the Cappadocians did not follow this course of thinking, Pannenberg contends, because the Arian controversy was concerned with how to define the unity of the three hypostases with the deity of the Father and not with the distinction between the three hypostases.103 In contending for the self-distinction of one divine person from another, Pannenberg argues against the traditional emphasis on relations of origin (generation and spiration). Instead, he believes that the term self-distinction more fully represents the reciprocal relations of the inner-triune relations in all their richness and eternal depth. Relations of origin have their place, but “their place is not determinative for distinguishing the divine persons.”104 In arguing against the tradition on relations of origin, on Pannenberg’s view, Christian theology better attests the diversity of relations encountered in the historical revelation of Jesus Christ. Pannenberg’s chief example of such diversity is the handing over of lordship from the Father to the Son and its handing back from the Son to the Father in the history of Jesus. On Pannenberg’s view, “The self-distinction of the Father from the Son is not just that he begets the Son but that he hands over all things to him, so that his kingdom and his own deity are now dependent on the Son.”105 According to this scheme of self-distinction and resulting dependence within the Godhead, the deity of the Father is made in some sense dependent on the Son and the Spirit. It is here that one sees the full implication of Pannenberg’s move away from relations of origin, in which the monarchy of the Father receives pride of place.

102 103 104 105

Pannenberg, ST1, p. 447. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 272. Iain Taylor, Pannenberg on the Triune God (London: T&T Clark, 2007), p. 33. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 313.

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Pannenberg does not discard the Father’s monarchy over creation altogether, but he reconceives it by making it the result rather than the presupposition of the being and activity of Spirit and the Son. Through the work of the Son the kingdom or monarchy of the Father is established in creation, and through the work of the Spirit, who glorifies the Son as the plenipotentiary of the Father, and in so doing glorifies the Father himself, the kingdom or monarchy of the Father in creation is consummated.106 This leads to the second relevant point of Pannenberg’s doctrine of the Trinity, the mutual dependence of each divine person on the other for their personal identity and deity. Pannenberg takes issue with Augustine’s contention that the persons of the Son and the Spirit are dependent as regards their personhood but not their deity. Taking it a step further, he contends that the “self-distinction of each of the persons from the others relates also to the deity and/or its attributes. This is indeed the theme and point of the self-distinction of one person from one or both of the others.”107 Pannenberg finds Athanasius’ formulation in Contra Arianos that the “Father would not be the Father without the Son” a better expression of both the dependence and mutuality of the three persons, including the Father, so that their individual deity is more fully affirmed.108 The Son and the Spirit are not only dependent on the Father in their sendings, but the Father is, in some sense, dependent on the Son and the Spirit as well. One sees in the history of Jesus a particular mutuality not expressed in begetting alone, specifically in the handing over of lordship from the Father to the Son and its handing back from the Son to the Father. “By handing over lordship to the Son,” Pannenberg explains: [T]he Father makes his kingship dependent on whether the Son glorifies him and fulfills his lordship by fulfilling his mission. The selfdistinction of the Father from the Son is not just that he begets the Son but that he hands over all things to him, so that his kingdom and his own deity are now dependent on the Son.109 Because, according to Pannenberg, God would not be God without his kingdom, so God’s “lordship goes hand in hand with the deity of God.”110 106 107 108 109 110

Pannenberg, ST1, p. 324. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 321. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 312. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 313. Pannenberg, ST1. Pannenberg finds support in this claim from Barth and Athanasius, citing Church Dogmatics I/1, p. 349, II/1, p. 461 and Contra Arianos 1.21, 1.46, 2.13, respectively.

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While God has lordship and therefore deity in se, with creation God’s deity is thrown into question until his lordship is established over it. The self-distinction of the Father from the Son is not just that he begets the Son but that he hands over all things to him, so that his kingdom and his own deity are now dependent upon the Son. The rule or kingdom of the Father is not so external to his deity that he might be God without his kingdom. The world as the object of his lordship might not be necessary to his deity, since its existence owes its origin to his creative freedom, but the existence of a world is not compatible with his deity apart from his lordship over it. Hence lordship goes hand in hand with the deity of God.111 On this basis, Pannenberg says regarding the crucifixion, “In the death of Jesus the deity of his God and Father was at issue. . . . The cross throws doubt not merely on the divine power of Jesus but also on the deity of the Father as Jesus proclaimed him.”112 The mutual dependence of the divine persons leads to the final point in our overview: Rahner’s rule and the resulting dogmatic relationship of the immanent to the economic Trinity. Rahner’s rule is simply this: “The ‘economic’ Trinity is the ‘immanent’ Trinity, and the ‘immanent’ Trinity is the ‘economic’ Trinity.”113 Though Pannenberg approves of this maxim, he revises it so that the economy of salvation is, in some ways, actually decisive for the life of the Father and not only the Son and the Spirit. For Pannenberg, “it is only with the inclusion of the Father into the matrix of mutual dependence for the persons’ deity” that Rahner’s rule can be given life.114 Pannenberg is quite aware of the potential abuses of pressing Rahner’s maxim, namely, that the immanent Trinity becomes absorbed into the economic Trinity. Pannenberg is entirely against this, reasoning that such assimilation “steals from the Trinity of salvation history all sense and significance.” “For this Trinity has sense and significance only if God is the same in salvation history as he is from eternity. . . . God is the same in his eternal essence as he reveals himself to be historically.”115 For Pannenberg, then, there exists both an inseparable unity and distinction between the eternal Trinity and its revelation in history. Pannenberg argues against ideas of God’s “becoming” in history, such as found in Whitehead’s process theology, “as if the trinitarian God were the result of history and 111 112 113 114 115

Pannenberg, ST1, p. 313. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 314. Karl Rahner, The Trinity (Tunbridge Wells: Burns and Oates, 1970), p. 22. Taylor, Triune God, pp. 40–1. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 330. Pannenberg cites Walter Kasper as an appropriate caution in this regard (Walter Kasper, The God of Jesus Christ [trans. M. J. O’Connell; New York: Crossroad, 1984]).

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achieved reality only with its eschatological consummation.”116 There is continuity in ST with Pannenberg’s recurring dismissal of Whitehead’s concept of divine development or becoming. In response to David Polk (also a process theologian) in 1988, Pannenberg argued, “On the level of the economic trinity there is undoubtedly an element of development and history within the divine reality itself. But the divine reality is also immanent trinity, eternal enjoyment of the fullness of its life. . . . That God as economic trinity has a history is itself a facet of the abundance of the eternal life of the trinitarian God.”117 Instead of a divine becoming in history that comes to fruition in the eschaton, the eschatological consummation is “only the locus of the decision that the trinitarian God is always the true God from eternity to eternity.”118 Pannenberg’s point here is a noetic one; history’s consummation in the coming of God’s kingdom has “a distinctive function in establishing belief in the trinitarian God if on the basis of this event a decision is made concerning the existence of God from eternity to eternity, i.e. before the foundation of the world.”119 That the consummation of history has noetic implications is in keeping with the tradition, but Pannenberg has repeatedly made a more distinctive, provocative claim which is heavily dependent on his views of time and eternity. In the same response to Polk referenced above, Pannenberg argued that the “place” of the unity between the immanent and economic Trinity is not in the past or the present but “in the eschatological consummation of history.”120 So, while not contending for a God who develops in history, Pannenberg also doesn’t want a God completely untouched by events in time. Instead, as one interpreter puts it, Pannenberg seems to be arguing “for a view of God whose eternal being is established retroactively from the point where eternity and time meet.”121 This is the point at which Pannenberg’s metaphysical commitments, specifically regarding the relation of time and eternity, play a large role in determining the cogency of his trinitarian claims.

116

117

118 119

120 121

Pannenberg, ST1, p. 331. Similarly, Wolfhart Pannenberg, MIG, pp. 71–3, 113–29; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “A Theological Conversation with Wolfhart Pannenberg,” Dialog (1972), p. 294; Wolfhart Pannenberg, Theology and the Kingdom of God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969), pp. 62–3. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “A Response to My American Friends,” in The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg: Twelve American Critiques, with an Autobiographical Essay and Response (ed. Carl E. Braaten and Philip Clayton; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1988), p. 323. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 331. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 332. Emphasis mine. Cf. Roger Olson, “Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” SJT 43 (1990), pp. 200–1. Pannenberg, “A Response to My American Friends,” p. 323. Mostert, God and the Future, p. 223.

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Drawing from canonical and early Christian sources Pannenberg argues that “God as always the same embraces all time and has all temporal things present to himself.”122 With Plotinus and against Plato, Pannenberg argues that eternity is not the antithesis of time but the “presence of the totality of life . . . the whole simultaneously as undivided perfection.”123 Agreeing in large measure with Barth, “In virtue of trinitarian differentiation,” Pannenberg explains, “God’s eternity includes the time of creatures in their full range, from the beginning of creation to its eschatological consummation.”124 Keeping with our introductory purposes we might hold the questions of time and eternity at bay and simply register two of Pannenberg’s claims. First, in ST Pannenberg’s concept of God’s eternity as encompassing time is constitutive for his formulation of the unity-in-distinction of the immanent and economic Trinity.125 Second, Pannenberg insists that the immanent Trinity has a kind of priority over the economic Trinity; God’s acts ad extra derive from his life in se. This second affirmation is clearly seen in Pannenberg’s critical evaluation of Robert Jenson’s doctrine of the Trinity. These remarks came after the publication of ST and shed light on Pannenberg’s earlier formulations in the dogmatics. “In Jenson’s presentation,” observes Pannenberg, the difference between the “immanent” Trinity—the eternal communion of Father, Son, and Spirit—and the “economic” Trinity almost vanishes. It is certainly true that that trinitarian God in the history of salvation is the same God as in the eternal life. But there is also a necessary distinction that maintains the priority of the eternal communion of the triune God over the communion’s explication in the history of salvation. Without that distinction, the reality of the one God tends to be dissolved into the process of the world.126 This can also be seen in Pannenberg’s much earlier Revelation as History, when he says, “Although the essence of God is from everlasting to everlasting the same, it does have a history in time.”127 One might say that it has been

122 123 124 125

126 127

Pannenberg, ST1, p. 403. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 403. Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 405–6. I am indebted to Christian Mostert for the phrase “unity-in-distinction” to describe Pannenberg’s view here (Roger Olson used the term first. See, Roger Olson, “Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” SJT 43 [1990], p. 185). See also, Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Eternity, Time and the Trinitarian God,” in Trinity, Time, and Church: A Response to the Theology of Robert W. Jenson (ed. Colin E. Gunton; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), pp. 62–70. Pannenberg, “A Trinitarian Synthesis,” pp. 49–53. Pannenberg et al., Revelation as History, pp. 133–4.

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Pannenberg’s project ever since to fill out the content and meaning of that contention! Statements such as these clearly mark out Pannenberg’s belief that the reciprocal relationship between the immanent and economic Trinity cannot result in a dissolution “into the process of the world.” We should also take note of the following explanation from another later essay in which Pannenberg elaborates on what he does and does not intend for his doctrine of the Trinity to express: When the Father made himself dependent on the success of the mission of his Son in the world, and when, by the crucifixion of the Son, not only the Son’s but also the Father’s identity and divine reality is put in jeopardy, it seems to some that such a view “potentializes” God’s highest and absolute reality, with the risk that it is lost in the uncertainties of history. But this criticism forgets, from the point of view of God’s eternity, history is always seen as a whole, in the light of its ultimate completion. Historical incidents that seem to put the authority and identity, and even the absolute reality, of God into question at certain moments in history are overcome in the light of the eschatological completion in God’s kingdom. So it is wrong to say that, with the transition from God’s eternity to the act of creation to the economy of salvation, no immanent Trinity remains, or that the immanent Trinity is completely dissolved into the economic Trinity or into the historical process.128 Passages such as this further bolster my claim that Pannenberg’s presentation in ST envisions an asymmetrical relationship between the immanent and economic Trinity, one not so easily vulnerable to Molnar’s critique we considered earlier. This asymmetry is important because at various points in this study I find Pannenberg shaping his account of God’s reconciling actions in history according to a reflection of the immanent Trinity—and not the determination, dependence, or collapse of the eternal God based on his investment in the temporal process.129 As we continue moving toward Pannenberg’s trinitarian account of the Christ-event, three interrelated aspects of Pannenberg’s doctrine of God have dogmatic significance for his concept of divine action and are salient 128

129

Pannenberg, “Divine Economy and Eternal Trinity,” p. 84. Pannenberg has several critics in mind here: Schulz, Sein und Trinität, p. 473; Vechtel, Trinität und Zukunft. Zum Verhältnis von Philosophie und Trinitätstheologie im Denken of Wolfhart Pannenbergs, pp. 196, 216, 272; Martinez Camino, “Wechselseitige Selbstunterscheidung? Zur Trinitätslehre Wolfhart Pannenbergs,” p. 147. See also, Pannenberg, “Eternity, Time and the Trinitarian God,” pp. 62–70. See below, Chapters 2 and 3.

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for our discussion: infinity, eternity, and Spirit. Though our treatment of these is decidedly brief (each topic could sustain a monograph of its own), each involves God’s relation to the world and is therefore illuminating for comprehending the shape Pannenberg understands God’s reconciling action to take in the world. As we remain attentive to the patterns of encounter between God and creatures as a result of God’s reconciling action, it will be instructive for us to keep in mind how Pannenberg thinks God’s essence and the implications for the God-world relation. It is my contention that throughout Pannenberg’s explication of the saving economy, these elements of his doctrine of God subtend the relationship between divine and human action. We begin with the “true Infinite.”

3.2. The Action of the “True Infinite” Following Gregory of Nyssa, Pannenberg prefers infinity (or “holiness”) over causation to be the most basic divine attribute.130 Pannenberg finds Gregory’s proposal for divine infinity congruent with Duns Scotus’ contention that infinity has basic significance for the whole concept of God and not just one attribute among many. With the help of the category of infinity, Pannenberg believes theology can meet the danger of imagining God as a finite being and thereby transgressing its responsibility to speak of God’s “inconceivable majesty”; a doctrine of God that works out from divine infinity secures a robust appreciation of God’s ever-greater, his “incomprehensibility.”131 In order for the Infinite to be truly infinite and not the negation of another finite, Pannenberg describes (with Hegel) the Infinite as the antithesis of the finite as such but that which embraces the opposition between finite and infinite within itself. Shults puts it well: “Pannenberg wants to insist that finite and infinite, temporal and eternal, are not merely opposed to each other; this would mean the eternal God was defined merely as that which is not finite.”132 Pannenberg is unwilling, however, to accept a purely conceptual, abstract notion of infinity, so he allows the concept of the Infinite to be “taken up” (sublated) or “elevated into” the biblical, theological notion of

130

131

132

Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 343–7, 397–401. Pannenberg singles out John of Damascus and Thomas Aquinas as representative examples of theologians for whom causation was primary. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 347. See, Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Analogy and Doxology (1963),” in Basic Questions in Theology, 2 vols., vol. 1 (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970). Shults, Postfoundationalist Task of Theology, p. 99. Similarly, Timothy Bradshaw, “The Trinitarian Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg: The Divine Future Perfect,” in Getting Your Bearings: Engaging with Contemporary Theologians (ed. Philip Duce and Daniel Strange; Leicester: Apollos, 2003), pp. 137, 147; John O’Donnell, “Pannenberg’s Doctrine of God,” Gregorianum 72, no. 1 (1991), pp. 73–91.

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God’s holiness.133 In order for infinity to be God’s infinity Pannenberg looks to the biblical witness and finds that God’s holiness enables us to develop, or fill out, the abstract notion of infinity: “The power of the holy, which is a threat to life in its destructive force, invades the human world in order to incorporate it into its own sphere.”134 Concretely, the sending of the Son into the world to bring it into the “sphere of divine holiness” and the Spirit’s creative activity as the “origin of all life” both testify to the fundamental relationship between the Infinite and the (created) finite. When understood against the backdrop of Pannenberg’s formulation of divine infinity, the relationship between divine and human action takes a particular shape. As the true Infinite, God’s presence and actions are simply not like those of finite creatures; one implication of this is that God’s actions are not competitive with creaturely actions. Following on from his arguments for God’s infinity Pannenberg writes, “God gives creatures space alongside himself, he grants them independent existence in their own place, and yet he is also present to them, since in his immensity he is not alone but also at the place of everything to which he grants life.”135 Because, for Pannenberg, omnipresence and omnipotence are “manifestations” of divine infinity, as the true Infinite, God inhabits these attributes such that he creates and allows creatures to retain their creatureliness even while the creature remains within God’s all-encompassing presence. God acts with an unlimited power, but his power is, as God’s, not tyrannical.136 Pannenberg’s long-standing idiom for God, “the All-determining Reality,” receives greater clarity in the light of his explication of the true Infinite in ST and should belie the worries of those critics who argue that Pannenberg’s “all-determining” God depletes human freedom.137 According to Pannenberg’s conception of the true Infinite, the world is given an existence of its own, a finite existence that is indeed “good” in its distinction from God. Yet God 133

134 135 136 137

I am in basic agreement with Shults’ interpretation of Pannenberg’s method of “sublation,” which Pannenberg describes as allowing a fundamental argument from anthropology or the sciences to be “elevated” into a systematic, biblical argument (Shults, Postfoundationalist Task of Theology, pp. 92–110, 203–11. Pannenberg describes this as “elevation” in the preface to Shults’ monograph (Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Foreword,” in The Postfoundationalist Task of Theology [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999]). Pannenberg, ST1, p. 398. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 413. Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 397, 414. For example, David P. Polk, “The All-Determining God and the Peril of Determinism,” in The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg: Twelve American Critiques with an Autobiographical Essay and Response (ed. Carl E. Braaten and Philip Clayton; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1988), pp. 152–68; David McKenzie, “Pannenberg on God and Freedom,” The Journal of Religion 60, no. 3 (1980), pp. 307–29. Pannenberg has responded to these critics more than once: for example, Pannenberg, IST, p. 11; Pannenberg, “A Response to My American Friends,” p. 322.

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transcends the antithesis to what is finite and seeks to make it holy. In the economy of salvation God is not present to the creature in “power and holiness” but “with it at its own place and under the condition of its existence” through the Son, who takes the place of creatures in his free self-distinction from the Father without violating their independence.138 Pannenberg’s first move, God is the true Infinite, sets the course for the second two: God’s essence as Spirit and divine eternality. Pannenberg’s view of divine infinity is filled out by his understanding of the Spirit of God, which “far transcends the content of the abstract concept of the true Infinite.”139 Just as the concept of infinity was taken up into the notion of divine holiness, Pannenberg allows the same to happen when infinity is “elevated” into the framework of God’s essence as Spirit. According to Pannenberg’s understanding of God’s essence as Spirit (chapter 6) and the relation of each divine person to the life of the Spirit which unites them by means of their relations, the actions appropriated to distinct persons of the Godhead (as “centers of action”) must be conceived as movements which embrace and permeate them all.140 In turn, the character of divine action, on Pannenberg’s view, is closely linked to God’s unity: “The commonality of action of Father, Son, and Spirit can be only a manifestation of the unity and life and essence by which they are always linked already.”141 Thus, while Pannenberg attributes certain actions to distinct persons of the Godhead and profiles those actions with some detail (more so than is typical in the theological tradition), he understands divine acts to be shared among the persons. It should be kept in mind, then, that in profiling the action of distinct divine persons he understands God’s acts as movements in which Father, Son, and Spirit all participate. This holds true for the atonement and the work of creation and eschatology as well.142 The eternality of God has direct implications for divine action as a further manifestation of God’s infinity. As noted above, Pannenberg favors Plotinus’ theory of eternity, which defines eternity as the totality of life. “Whereas life in time is fragmented and sequential, eternity is the totality of life simultaneously present.”143 On this conception eternity is not opposed to time but embraces time in its totality. Pannenberg develops this through his understanding of the true Infinite. According to the structure of the true Infinite, which is not just opposed to the finite but also embraces the antithesis, eternity is not “simply opposed to time but positively related to it”; 138 139 140 141 142 143

Pannenberg, ST1, p. 421. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 400. Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 347, 384–96; similarly, Pannenberg, ST3, p. 630. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 385. See below, Chapters 2 and 4. Samuel M. Powell, The Trinity in German Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 256.

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eternity embraces time “in its totality.”144 For Pannenberg, then, because eternity embraces the totality of time, eternity appears to creatures from the standpoint of time “only in terms of a fullness that is sought in the future.”145 It is only with the future of creatures who exist in time that totality will be achieved. Because God is not subject to the march of time as creatures are, God “does not have ahead of him any future that is different from his present.”146 God’s eternity contains the completion, the “totality,” of time itself. Based on this view of eternity, Pannenberg draws clear implications for divine action. Finite creatures, on one hand, exist in time and thus bridge the gap between the selection and achievement of goals through their actions; God’s saving action, on the other hand, is “grounded in his eternity.” In his eternity God is present at all times and the goal of his action, the manifestation of his lordship over the world of creation, does not make good a lack in his eternal being but incorporates his creatures into the eternal fellowship of the Son with the Father through the Spirit. To this extent the action of God in the world is a repetition or reiteration of his eternal deity in relation to the world.147 God does not stand at the beginning of time looking ahead to its completion, setting and achieving goals as finite creatures. If God were conceived according to the limitations of finite beings his rule over world occurrence would only be, on Pannenberg’s view, a tyranny. It could only involve total control over the course of events, limiting if not destroying the goal of independence for which creatures were given limited existence. Pannenberg clearly has this worry in mind when he writes, “The sending of the Son into the world and the fulfillment of his mission by his death is God’s way of actualizing his rule in the world without oppression and with respect for the independence of creatures, even on the part of God himself.”148 Instead, Pannenberg argues that God’s action originates from eternity. This is, for finite creatures, most closely associated with the future, the “mode of time that stands closest to God’s eternity.”149 Based on the eternality of God’s acts and their singularity, then, it is only with the eschatological consummation that we can “give 144 145 146 147

148 149

Pannenberg, ST1, p. 408. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 408. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 410. Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 388–9; similarly, Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Contributions from Systematic Theology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Science (ed. Philip Clayton; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), pp. 364–5. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 394. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 390. For the metaphysical and theological commitments underlying this claim, see Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 388–96, 401–10; Pannenberg, MIG, pp. 69–90.

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material definition” to God’s action, that one divine act which spans the whole economy of salvation and finds completion only at the end.150 For Pannenberg, the “eschatological” structure of divine action should not be interpreted to mean that a “future” stands before God during which time a deficiency will be remedied, that God will become something he is not already or that in some sense God will reach completion. Pannenberg addressed these concerns as early as 1972, and he has continually distanced himself from process theology throughout his writings.151 It is only when Pannenberg’s view of divine infinity and its implications for God’s eternity are taken together that one gains clarity on Pannenberg’s thinking of the God-world relationship. From God’s eternal perspective (where time is totality) God’s being and his rule over creation are never in question; it is only from the perspective of time-bound creatures that God’s rule is in question. Powell interprets Pannenberg well on this point: In God’s eternity there is completion; all human history lies in the immediacy of God’s presence and nothing remains to be decided. However, by creating a world with a temporal character, God has made the divine being and rule something questionable from the perspective of those who are in time. In time, it is not yet evident and in fact not completely true that God exists and that God rules. Only the eschatological day will decide these matters in a completely convincing way.152 God’s rule and being are never really in question from God’s perspective in eternity. Without a doubt, Pannenberg articulates a complex relationship between God’s being, eternity, and the finite existence of creatures, a view that he himself has acknowledged is counterintuitive to normal perceptions of time. It seems that one’s reading of Pannenberg on this issue (divine infinity and its implications for eternity and time) has great significance for how one interprets Pannenberg’s mature thought on the God-world relationship. Put differently, whether or not one finds Pannenberg constraining divine freedom through his depiction of the immanent-economic relationship, on one hand, or sees him only moving the divine life in se “closer” to the world process without depleting divine aseity, on the other, will pivot (at least in part) on one’s reading of Pannenberg on the true Infinite and the attending implications for God’s relation to time. Pannenberg attempts to navigate a route between process thought and certain forms of classical theism. Pannenberg has argued more than once that the god of process thought is 150 151 152

Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 630–2. Pannenberg, “A Theological Conversation with Wolfhart Pannenberg,” esp. p. 294. Powell, Trinity in German Thought, p. 257.

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not really God at all;153 for the sake of a robust account of divine immediacy, God’s transcendence is sacrificed. On the other hand, Pannenberg finds certain classical accounts of God’s transcendence which trade heavily on a particular construal of divine sufficiency and immutability posit a god too distant from creation, one unable to be truly invested in the world.154 For Pannenberg, taking Jesus seriously means conceiving his lived history as somehow genuinely related to the divine life in se. Christoph Schwöbel is close to the mark, then, when he says that ST must be read in two ways: “as an application of the doctrine of the immanent Trinity to the divine economy, and as an application of the divine economy to the trinitarian doctrine of God.”155 Schwöbel is also certainly right that this dual perspective of Pannenberg’s dogmatics adds to its “complexity,” and it is the reason Pannenberg must repeatedly remind the reader of God’s unique form of acting from the eschatological future. Keeping Schwöbel’s twofold distinction in mind, we might note representative examples on either side of the issue. Interpreters who lend interpretive weight to Pannenberg’s repeated insistence that God exists eternally free in himself, and that the divine economy is a “reiteration” or “repetition” of God’s eternally sufficient life, will read Pannenberg’s account of God’s “self-actualization” as the expression of the differentiated unity of the divine life in the world. Passages in which Pannenberg speaks of God’s rule and thus his deity as “dependent” on Jesus’ ministry are the same. They will do so because they allow the implications of Pannenberg’s view of divine infinity for eternity and time to carry the day. In other words, these readings approach ST more according to the “application of the doctrine of the immanent Trinity to the divine economy.”156 On the other hand, interpreters who find Pannenberg making God’s eternal being and divinity essentially dependent on history’s completion—as 153

154 155 156

On Pannenberg and process theology, see Pannenberg, Theology and the Kingdom of God, pp. 62–3; Pannenberg, “A Response to My American Friends,” p. 323; Pannenberg, MIG, pp. 71–3, 113–29; Pannenberg, ST1, p. 331. See Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 436–8. Schwöbel, “Rational Theology,” p. 508. For example, Taylor, Triune God, pp. 180–1; Powell, Trinity in German Thought, pp. 233–9, 253–9; Todd S. Labute, “Essence, Action and Anticipation in Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Doctrine of the Trinity” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Marquette University, 1999), pp. 197–210; Sanders, Image of the Immanent Trinity, pp. 106–7; Timothy Bradshaw’s excellent study was conducted before the publication of ST and does not therefore interact with the relationships between infinity, eternality, and action found there. However, he identifies the same dual emphasis in Pannenberg’s thought: “[Pannenberg] wishes to unite the ontologically real Trinity with an inner, organic relativity of God. . . . He insists upon the integration of history with deity, and he insists at the same time that this deity is the all-determining reality” (Timothy Bradshaw, Trinity and Ontology: A Comparative Study of the Theologies of Karl Barth and Wolfhart Pannenberg [Edinburgh: Rutherford House Books, 1988], p. 327).

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a negative or positive contribution—downplay Pannenberg’s references to eternal sufficiency and instead give interpretive weight to Pannenberg’s “application of the divine economy to the doctrine of God.” For Molnar this is Pannenberg’s grand mistake and results in a god too dissimilar from the God of the Christian tradition (as seen through the lens of Karl Barth).157 Ted Peters, however, finds in Pannenberg an example of one who successfully “steams forward” past his theological predecessors to picture a God who actually “jeopardizes his own divinity in order to engage in historical intercourse with created reality.”158 For Peters, this is Pannenberg’s great strength, not his fault. Schwöbel’s contention is surely correct that ST should be read according to Pannenberg’s two purposes (to think the divine economy from the immanent Trinity and to think the immanent Trinity from the economy), but I suggest they are related asymmetrically in the actual presentation of ST. As we saw above, on Pannenberg’s view of divine infinity and its implications for thinking God’s eternality, as the eternal God, God is a totality in himself; he lacks nothing—although the same cannot be said about the created realm which exists in time and thus awaits totality. In Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation his use of faithfulness is a particularly telling instance of this asymmetry: On Pannenberg’s terms, God’s faithfulness to creation is grounded in God’s eternal faithfulness to himself according to the mutuality of the relations of the divine persons. Thus, exploring Pannenberg’s presentation of God’s reconciling acts as instances of divine “faithfulness” provides a useful interpretive angle on the relationship he envisions between the immanent and economic Trinity. We might stay with this a moment longer for the sake of illustration. Throughout ST, Pannenberg conceives the patterns of encounter between divine and human action in various ways. But in each case we can see that Pannenberg’s expositions of these patterns are funded by his doctrine of God and the infinite-finite relation there conceptualized. Yet it is an impressive feature of Pannenberg’s dogmatics that he does not simply leverage the conceptual commitments of his doctrine of God—no matter how conditioned by divine holiness or God’s spirituality; instead, he looks to various fields of study to elucidate the character of divine action in each specific point of encounter with creatures. In each of the following three instances Pannenberg’s theological moves cohere (a critical measure of success for Pannenberg) to the infinite-finite relation he outlines in his doctrine of God, even if he does not make this explicit. First, Pannenberg operates with a conception of God’s agency which is shaped, or conditioned, by the full implications of God’s transcendence, his 157 158

See n. 22 above in the Introduction. Ted Peters, God as Trinity: Relationality and Temporality in Divine Life (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993), pp. 135–44.

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singular difference from created reality. For example, Pannenberg will say, “All history, even human action, ultimately is an expression of God’s action, who creates all things”159 seemingly without any worry that such assertions would obliterate any corresponding account of human freedom. The same conception of divine agency surfaces in the following discussion of concursus and world government: On one side, the doctrine of divine cooperation with the activities of creatures shows us that creatures are not left to themselves in their activities. On the other side we are not to see in God’s working a sole-causality (Alleinwirksamkeit) that excludes the autonomy of creatures and their possible deviation from God’s purposes.160 God’s agency in the world is of a fundamentally different kind because it originates in the triune, transcendent God. God’s acting in the world cannot be reductively conceived, then, as “sole-causality,” causality that excludes other agencies. Kathryn Tanner is among several late twentieth-century theologians who make a similar move. Toward avoiding contrastive accounts of divine and human agency, efforts are made not to regard them as a zero-sum game: “the more involved or immanent, the less transcendent, and vice versa.”161 God’s “radical transcendence” Tanner argues, can be exercised in both God’s otherness over and against the world and God’s immanent presence within it. A self-determined transcendence does not limit God’s relation with the world to one of distance. A radical transcendence does not exclude God’s positive fellowship with the world or presence within it. Only created beings, which remain themselves over and against others, risk the distinctness of their own natures by entering into intimate relations with another. God’s transcendence alone is one that may be properly exercised in the radical immanence by which God is said to be nearer to us than we are to ourselves.162

159

160

161 162

Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Resurrection of Jesus: History and Theology,” Dialog 38, no. 1 (1999), p. 20. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 48 (author’s translation. Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 2, p. 65). Bromiley’s rendering of Alleinwirksamkeit as “omnicausality” is problematic to the extent that it suggests determinism foreign to the passage and foreign to Pannenberg’s conception of the true Infinite. Placher, Domestication of Transcendence, p. 111. Kathryn Tanner, God and Creation in Christian Theology: Tyranny or Empowerment? (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), p.79; See also, Robert A. Cathey, God in Postliberal Perspective: Between Realism and Non-Realism (Surrey: Ashgate, 2009), pp. 127–8, 134–5, 149–56.

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As Reihold Hütter explains it, on accounts of divine agency such as this, because the entire matrix of secondary causality “relates instrumentally to the divine transcendent cause, human causality is infallibly directed by divine providence” without destroying human freedom in the process.163 God is simply not an agent of the same kind as other agents in the world, thus we should not suppose that God’s agency functions “after the model of other agents.”164 Second, we see similar moves in Pannenberg’s argument for the interpretation of God’s involvement in history. “God’s activity in his creation,” he explains, “related to natural events or regarding the history of creatures, is not in competition with the operation of creaturely factors.” Rather, God the creator rules his creatures through their acts because “God and creatures, as centers of action (Handlungsprinzipien), do not belong on the same level, so that a competition could arise.”165 Also, to the relationship between the church and divine providence, he explains: [T]he church is subject to the providence of God as to a reality that differs from it in nature and that is transcendent to it and to the world. . . . The thought of God’s action relative to the church in the course of its history involves its difference from God in spite of its relation to him, and the difference of all humanity from God. In the form of his action God always manifests this difference concretely and contingently, yet within the unity of the divine economy of salvation, a unity that embraces the history of the church and beyond that human history as a whole.166 Third, Pannenberg argued along similar lines in Faith and Reality, a collection of essays and lectures given during the 1960s, though not worked out in relation to divine infinity.167 “The course of history and God’s action 163

164 165

166 167

Reinhold Hütter, “The Christian Life,” in The Oxford Handbook to Systematic Theology (ed. Kathryn Tanner. John Webster, and Iain Torrance; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 294. Placher, Domestication of Transcendence, p. 113. Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 501–2 (author’s translation. Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 3, p. 542). Similarly, Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Problems between Science and Theology in the Course of Their Modern History,” Zygon 41, no. 1 (2006), pp. 109–10; Pannenberg, “A Response to My American Friends,” pp. 322–3. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 503. Fred Sanders sees a shift in Pannenberg’s thinking between the publication of ST1 and ST2. He argues that the repeated emphasis on divine freedom in the creation material in ST2 should be read as Pannenberg’s effort to balance the material in ST1 on God’s self-actualization (Sanders, Image of the Immanent Trinity, p. 103). I do not find this argument convincing principally because, as the following examples demonstrate, Pannenberg has long held to a robust (if innovative at times) concept of divine freedom.

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in history are no longer seen as something which just happens to human beings, which they must accept passively,” Pannenberg writes, “but as the sphere of human action. God is not seen as acting in competition with man in history, but through human action, both in its success and its failure.”168 Thus, while history must be understood as “in God’s hands” it does not mean that God’s activity “compet[es] with man’s activity.”169 In fact, Pannenberg contends, history can only be properly understood when seen as God acting in creation: The God of the Bible encompasses his creation in his almighty freedom. . . . Through the whole course of his action in this history, from beginning to end of creation, the biblical God reveals himself as the Lord of the world, as the true God, as the Creator who remains in control of his work.170 When we read arguments such as these in relation to Pannenberg’s doctrine of God—specifically his formulation of divine infinity—it becomes clear that Pannenberg is not making a basically “linguistic” argument but instead trading on the relationship between the true Infinite (God) and finite creatures. On Pannenberg’s account, God’s power, as the power of the true Infinite, is simply not in the same genus as the power and action of finite creatures—and therefore is not in competition with it. Take note, however, that Pannenberg does not make a straightforward appeal in the three examples considered here to the conceptual structure of the doctrine of God. Instead, he argues from creation in a way that coheres with his formulation of the true Infinite in chapter 6. His arguments here are funded by or built out from his particular doctrine of divine infinity and the attending God-world relation. Similar examples could be multiplied. In other instances, Pannenberg appeals to God’s eschatological future as the origin of divine action but, in fact, the argument ultimately (and systematically) depends on the infinite-finite relationship. In still other instances, Pannenberg appropriates contemporary field theory to conceptualize divine activity in the particularities of creation noncompetitively. We will take a closer look at how Pannenberg employs the conceptuality of field theories in the following chapter, but suffice it to say that, although Pannenberg’s pneumatological expositions of creation and faith’s assent to divine revelation stand on their own without direct appeal to divine infinity, they should ultimately be interpreted in light of his 168

169 170

Wolfhart Pannenberg, Faith and Reality (trans. John Maxwell; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977; reprint, Glaube und Wirklichkeit. Kleine Beitrage zum Christlichen Denken. Munich: Chr. Kaiser, 1975.), p. 134. Emphasis mine. Pannenberg, Faith and Reality, p. 7. Pannenberg, Faith and Reality, p. 88.

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doctrine of God. The same is true for the church’s “participation” in God’s reconciling activity171 as well as Pannenberg’s eschatological vision of creaturely participation in divine fellowship in the kingdom of God.172 As the self-offering of the Son for the reconciliation of the world and his being offered up by the Father are one and the same event and form a single process, so we are to see the work of the exalted Christ and that of the Spirit in us as different aspects of one and the same divine action for the reconciliation of the world.173 In ST, Pannenberg maintains that a trinitarian description of reconciliation, one that includes not only the Father who offered up his Son but also the action of the Son and the Spirit, can “help us understand our human participation in the making of reconciliation” and further “clarify the relation between exclusive and inclusive representation in Christ’s reconciling death.”174 Toward this end, the fourth part of chapter 11 (“The Triune God as Reconciler of the World”) delineates God’s work of reconciliation according to appropriations of action: first to the Father, then to the Son, and finally to the Spirit.

3.3. The Work of the Father, Son, and Spirit in the Christ-Event With a sense for the broad contours of Pannenberg’s doctrine of the Trinity in hand, we can better read Pannenberg’s trinitarian account of Christ’s work. Pannenberg is committed to articulate the crucifixion according to a strict trinitarian criterion of the mutual relationships in the Godhead. For Pannenberg, “God’s action is not just appropriated to the trinitarian persons,” Iain Taylor explains, but it is also “sequential in a way that corresponds to the divine life.” God’s triunity entails “a multiple unity rather than just a simple one” which in turn allows for the diversity of divine action to be, for God, one and the same action, whether it be the work of creation, reconciliation, or consummation.175 The “multiple unity” of Pannenberg’s doctrine of the Trinity and its implications for his concept of divine action is important for grasping his interest in profiling the actions of the divine persons while simultaneously arguing (strongly) for the unity of their action. To speak of God’s unity, on Pannenberg’s terms, is to speak according to the relationships of mutual self-distinction that define the Godhead—relations we see mirrored and thus revealed in the life of Jesus and his acceptance of death on the cross. 171 172 173 174 175

See below, Chapter 3. See below, Chapter 4. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 450. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 437. Taylor, Triune God, p. 183.

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When Pannenberg turns his attention to the Christ-event he necessarily amends some of his earlier formulations from JGM in order to more plainly surface the presence of divine action in Jesus’ human history and path to the cross. In so doing, he gives a substantive answer to the question, “Was the crucifixion really a tragedy that befell Jesus?” Toward representing the trinitarian character of God’s action in the crucifixion, Pannenberg considers the movements of each divine person in turn, beginning with the Father. Drawing upon his exegesis of 2 Cor. 5.18–21 and Rom. 5.10, Pannenberg considers the death of Jesus to involve not finally the actions of his Roman executioners or Jewish judges but the work of the Father. Echoing the language of Rom. 8.32, Pannenberg describes the action of the Father as a “gifting” of his Son to the world.176 To place such emphasis on the New Testament passages witnessing to the Father’s action would be, however, to ignore those depicting the Son’s obedience as an action in its own right, so it is to those Pannenberg turns next. In order to give testimony to the Son’s obedience while at the same time maintaining the initiative of the Father, Pannenberg articulates an account of their cooperation. For Pannenberg, the Father’s “giving up” and the Son’s obedience must be saying the “same thing in different ways,” and can be brought together when their actions are understood cooperatively.177 The obedience of the Son corresponds to the giving up by the Father (Rom. 5.19; Phil. 2.8; Heb. 5.8–10); both act, but they act in cooperation. Thus, the Son is not depicted as a mere object of the Father’s will but an active, willing participant. The pressing question for Pannenberg, then, is how to understand this view from the perspective of the human historicity of the person of Jesus. Having ruled out Jesus’ own self-awareness of his forthcoming death yet remaining committed to a view in which the act of the Father and the Son are driving Jesus’ history toward the cross, Pannenberg must navigate an answer that satisfies both. Doing so according to the cooperative action of the Father and the Son will mean a sharp departure from his account in JGM, in which the crucifixion was a fate that “befell” Jesus.178 As we pointed out in the introduction to this chapter, in JGM Jesus’ role in his passion was characterized by passivity. Conceiving Jesus as an acting agent results from “transferring the Messianic office of the exalted Lord back into the path of Jesus to the cross” which Pannenberg urged is not in

176 177 178

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 438, n. 117. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 439. Gunther Wenz, Wolfhart Pannenbergs Systematische Theologie: Ein einführender Bericht (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2003): “This view compels Pannenberg to correct his earlier position [in JGM] . . . insofar as in accordance with the trinitarian constitution of the reconciling works from an action not only of the Son of God, with and according to the human activity of Jesus, but in a difference from whose action and passion preserves and integrates his way and speech” (p. 195).

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agreement with the character of Jesus’ pre-Easter life.179 He argued instead that Jesus was entirely passive and that his crucifixion represents, therefore, a “failure” of Jesus’ mission, an event best viewed as a “catastrophe.”180 In ST Pannenberg amends his earlier position and affirms that while the cross appears to have befallen Jesus, the actions of the Son can be found in those aspects of Jesus’ existence that may appear passive. While, on Pannenberg’s view, Jesus did not set himself toward the cross, “nothing unforeseen or unplanned can happen to the Son of God”; therefore, a model must be developed to understand the Son’s agency in Jesus’ human history without depleting the authenticity of Jesus’ humanity.181 In his effort to develop this model, Pannenberg attempts to rehabilitate the Reformation doctrine of the threefold office. When applied to the historical Jesus Pannenberg argues that the threefold office separates the person and work of the Savior, which belong “indissolubly together,”182 but when applied to the eternal Son it can serve a helpful function, presenting “his meaning for humans in every age in the form of the work of God in Jesus.”183 How one should interpret the human history of Jesus as a genuine human history is a question that still remains important for Pannenberg. To account for the Son’s agency in Jesus’ death while not depleting a full representation of Jesus’ humanity, Pannenberg puts forward two criteria for interpreting Jesus’ history. First, when interpreting the life of Jesus, one must hold two histories in view: the human history of Jesus available to historical research and the history of the Son present in Jesus. Thus, what “seems in the one case to happen to Jesus is now an action of the Son of God that aims . . . at the salvation of humanity and that then finds continuation in the activity of the risen Lord.”184 If one views Jesus’ human history alone (the first history), as Pannenberg does in his earlier monograph, then the only conclusion one could draw would be that Jesus suffered the cross as a tragedy “without himself bringing it about as an act of self-offering.”185 In this sense, the historical Jesus was neither prophet, priest, nor king.186 The second history is the history of the Son of God who is present in Jesus. Pannenberg contends that it is only through positing this second history that 179 180

181 182 183 184 185 186

Pannenberg, JGM, p. 220. Pannenberg, JGM, p. 245. Pannenberg argues that Anselm failed by “overlook[ing] the character of Jesus’ death as something that happened to him, and misunderstood it as something that Jesus had actively done” (Pannenberg, JGM, p. 277). Pannenberg finds an ally in Luther, saying that “[In Luther] the character of the cross as something that happened to Jesus is maintained” (p. 278). Similarly, p. 335. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 442. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 444. Cf. Grenz, Reason for Hope, 2nd ed., p. 170, n. 52. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 445. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 445; similarly Pannenberg, JGM, pp. 220–45. Compare to Pannenberg, JGM, pp. 208–25.

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the doctrine of Christ’s reconciling office can be understood, a doctrine that views the history “on the solid basis of the reality of the eternal son of God present in Jesus.”187 In order to make sense of how human historical investigation cannot yield the Christ of faith, Pannenberg argues for “other contexts” beyond those available to historical research. “Naturally the Son of God incarnate in Jesus acts through his human activity,” Pannenberg reasons, “but his action embraces the distinction between human activity and the fate of Jesus. The earthly activities thus have contexts other than those that appear on a purely historical approach.”188 Thus, when we perceive the Son as active in the history of Jesus, we also see the fate of execution that overtakes Jesus to be an act of self-offering on the part of the incarnate Son of God, who is at work in this history. In this way, Pannenberg maintains both the importance of Jesus’ earthly history and the context that gives meaning to those events. Pannenberg unpacks the cooperative action of the Father and the Son in the first two subsections of his treatment of the triune action of God in the crucifixion. In turning his attention to the Spirit in the third subsection, “The Completion of Reconciliation in the Spirit,” Pannenberg again registers his insistence that divine reconciliation must be conceived as a process including both the event of reconciliation (Christ-event) and its “actualization” through the cooperative action of the Son and the Spirit.189 I give lengthy attention to Pannenberg’s account of the Spirit’s actualizing work in the following chapter, so I might simply note here the role this section plays dogmatically. This subsection reaffirms Pannenberg’s commitment to articulate a doctrine of reconciliation that spans God’s economy of salvation (“anticipation,” “actualization,” and “consummation”), but it serves a transitional function as well, moving the argument toward his ecclesiology in ST3. Following Pannenberg’s treatment of the Spirit’s function to “actualize” the reconciliation accomplished in the Christ-event, he concludes chapter 11 with a section on the gospel. Thus, while Pannenberg unpacks the action of the Spirit, he is also forming a systematic relationship between the Christ-event and the work of the Spirit-empowered work of the church, to which he will give his full (and lengthy) attention in chapters 12–14. That Pannenberg invests the subsection on the Spirit’s work with this function might go a long way toward explaining the (surprising) criticism of Ingolf Dalferth that Pannenberg’s avowedly trinitarian view of the 187 188

189

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 441. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 446. Emphasis mine. Similarly, “Statements about the action of the Son in the history of Jesus, and especially in his death for the world’s salvation, obviously transcend an immediate human interpretation of the coming, work, and destiny of Jesus” (Pannenberg, ST2, p. 442). Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 449–54.

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crucifixion is actually “binitarian,” leaving out the work of the Spirit.190 By presenting the crucifixion as an event in which “Jesus’ self-distinction from God manifests the eternal self-differentiation of the Son from the Father”191 and vice versa, Dalferth finds Pannenberg failing to demarcate the activity of the Spirit in the crucifixion. True, Pannenberg does not explicitly appropriate action to the Spirit in the crucifixion, but he does have an implicit view of the Spirit’s activity in this event which Dalferth would have observed had he considered Pannenberg’s discussion of the cross more broadly in ST. The most obvious indication of Pannenberg’s commitment to a trinitarian view of the crucifixion is his contention for a “multiple unity” of relations and actions within the Godhead; relations in which “the activity is not only on the part of God the Father, but also of the Son and the Spirit.”192 In addition, since Pannenberg leverages the concept of reconciliation to describe and encompass the entire process of God’s saving economy, from cross to consummation, he may not be as concerned as Dalferth regarding the apparent absence of the Spirit in the crucifixion. Pannenberg so intimately connects the cross and the resurrection within the reconciliation event that a trinitarian account of reconciliation is not harmed by describing the cross as a cooperative action of the Father and the Son and the resurrection as the Spirit’s work.193 This interpretation is validated by the way in which Pannenberg delineates proclamation as a cooperative action of the Spirit and the exalted Christ. With this in view, Dalferth’s criticism appears much less troublesome. Nonetheless, the implicit pneumatology of Pannenberg’s atonement theology can be demonstrated in at least two other ways. First, Pannenberg’s doctrine of creation asserts that the Son’s eternal selfdifferentiation from the Father contains “the possibility of the separate existence of creatures,” for the Son is the “generative principle of otherness.”194 The Spirit cooperates with the creative activity of the Son and is the “creative

190

191 192

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Ingolf U. Dalferth, “The Eschatological Roots of the Doctrine of the Trinity,” in Trinitarian Theology Today: Essays on Divine Act and Being (ed. Christoph Schwöbel; London: T&T Clark, 1995), p. 153. Dalferth, “The Eschatological Roots of the Doctrine of the Trinity,” p. 153. Pannenberg, “Divine Economy and Eternal Trinity,” pp. 84–5. Similarly, Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Christian Vision of God: The New Discussion of the Trinitarian Doctrine,” ATJ 46, no. 2 (1991), “Son and Spirit share in the divine essence of the Father not just by being begotten and by proceeding from the Father, but by contributing to the Kingdom of the Father that is entrusted to the Son and returned to Himself through the Holy Spirit. It is this concrete dynamics of perichoresis that the three persons share the Kingdom and the same essence.” (p. 35); Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 389–96, esp. 394–6. “The event of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ does not merely bring the deity of the Father as well as the Son into question. It refers both to the work of the Spirit, who as Creator of all life raises Jesus from the dead” (Pannenberg, ST1, p. 314). Pannenberg, IST, p. 42.

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origin of all life.”195 The Spirit is the life-giving principle to which all creatures, including Jesus, owe life, movement, and activity. While not equating the human spirit and the Spirit of God, he wants to repair the sharp distinction between the two seen, for example, in Tillich.196 Therefore, because Jesus’ human life found its creative origin in the Spirit of God, Pannenberg would implicitly affirm the Spirit’s presence in the death of Jesus’ physical body. Second, Pannenberg finds evidence for the Spirit’s empowerment of Jesus’ earthly ministry all too prevalent in the New Testament, saying that the Spirit is “the mode of God’s presence in Jesus as he was of God’s presence in the prophets.”197 In his entire earthly ministry of teaching, healing, exorcising demons (and presumably including the passion and crucifixion), Jesus was empowered by the presence of the Spirit. Although Dalferth may not find an explicit demarcation of the Spirit’s presence in Pannenberg account of the atonement, he will find ample evidence of the implicit presence of the Spirit throughout ST. THE PREVIOUS section took Pannenberg’s appropriations of divine action as an invitation to explore his understanding of the character of those divine acts. It is now necessary to take the enquiry further, and in doing so to press deeper into Pannenberg’s explication of those acts specifically as movements of divine faithfulness. It is significant for Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation that he intentionally relates the Father’s agency in the crucifixion to the Father’s providential care of creation. According to the Father’s providential ordering of the course of history and “through all the baseness, cowardice, and brutality” of the crucifixion “God the Father was at work in this event.”198 To see the significance of this reference (made twice in Pannenberg’s presentation), we are required to read Pannenberg’s dogmatics according to his own criterion of internal coherence (see introduction). Carrying this out entails looking back to Pannenberg’s doctrine of creation, in which he renders providential care and preservation in terms of divine faithfulness. For Pannenberg, the preservation of creatures is a form of God’s faithfulness described in terms of God’s “holding fast to his creation.”199 Pannenberg also marks out God’s 195

196 197

198 199

Pannenberg, ST1, p. 315. Similarly Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 373, 414; Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 76, 136, 190; Pannenberg, IST, pp. 45–6. Grenz, Reason for Hope, 2nd ed., p. 131. Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 266–7. It is curious that Pannenberg never draws upon the clearest reference to the work of the Spirit in God’s reconciling work of the Cross: Heb. 9.14—“How much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.” Pannenberg, ST2, p. 438. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 59.

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acts of “purifying, delivering, reconciling, and consummating” of his creatures as acts of preservation (i.e., faithfulness) as well. Through the course of my study thus far, it should be increasingly clear that Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation, even its first movement of “anticipation” in the Christ-event, is entirely characterized by two of the criteria marked out in my introduction: divine action and process. Our discussion of the trinitarian nature of the Christ-event presents us with an ideal opportunity to address more plainly the third characteristic: divine faithfulness articulated in terms of God’s “holding fast” to creation. In paying attention to the thread of divine faithfulness woven throughout Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation, our attention should be drawn to the relationship Pannenberg understands between the persons of the Godhead. The Father’s eternal faithfulness to the Son and the Son to the Father through the Spirit is the backdrop upon which and the source from which Pannenberg wants us to understand the faithfulness of God’s reconciling acts toward us. God’s faithfulness to himself means faithfulness between the divine persons; faithfulness to his creatures is eternally sourced in those relationships and is expressed to creatures in time as reconciliation. To pursue this further, we look first at Pannenberg’s preferred idiom for God’s faithfulness to creation, festhalten, before exploring more carefully Pannenberg’s conception of the content and knowledge of God’s faithfulness. With this in hand, we will be prepared to move on to Chapter 2.

3.4. Divine Faithfulness: “Held Fast” by God in Time Pannenberg’s long-standing preference for the idiom “holding fast” to depict God’s faithfulness is easily demonstrated with a few early examples. In “The Biblical Understanding of Reality” (1961) Pannenberg draws out the implications for God’s faithfulness in terms of the continuity of history and the laws of nature and casts faithfulness as “holding fast.” God is faithful and because of this he always and unfailingly holds fast—however new and unforeseeable his present activity may be—to his earlier principles. He holds fast to man as his creation and to Israel as his people. The faithfulness of God forms the basis in the Bible of the continuity of history. Even the laws of nature do not exist in their own right—they too are free ordinances of God (see Gen 3.21 ff) and can only continue because he is free and faithful.200 200

Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Biblical Understanding of Reality (1961),” in Faith and Reality (trans. John Maxwell; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977), p. 12 (author’s translation). Emphasis in the original text. On the continuity of history and natural laws related to divine faithfulness, see also Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Contingency and Natural Law,” in Toward a Theology of Nature (ed. Ted Peters; trans. Wilhelm C. Linss; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993; appeared originally as “Kotingenz

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Not long after, Pannenberg gave a series of radio addresses in Germany during the winter of 1961 and 1962, which appear virtually unchanged in his short book on anthropology, What is Man? Pannenberg here links humankind’s hope beyond death to the faithfulness of God that “holds fast” to them after death through the resurrection of the dead: The Christian hope of resurrection is at least clear about the fact that no element of our present human existence can outlast death, although even in death man continues to be held fast before God. Resurrection can only be hoped for as a completely new becoming, as a radical transformation, if not as a new creation. . . . Therefore, everything we now say and think about a future life is only a metaphor.201 I take a final example from Pannenberg’s lectures given at various seminaries and universities in the United States and in Britain during fall and spring 1975 and 1976. These were later published as Human Nature, Election, and History. Here Pannenberg criticizes the abstract, individualistic tendencies in the classic doctrine of election and puts forth the faithfulness of God as his commitment to “hold fast” not only to the covenant people of Israel but to the church as the people of God as well. In consequence of his extending God’s election to all those who faithfully accept the apostolic gospel, Paul also includes the Christian church in the old concept of the people of God. In Rom., ch. 11, Paul presents the question whether, in view of Israel’s rejection of the gospel, God “rejected his people” (v. 1). His answer is emphatically negative. How could Christians trust in their comparatively recent status of being elected if God did not faithfully hold fast to his election of Israel.202 Throughout his presentation in ST, Pannenberg’s use of this idiom for God’s faithfulness emerges in undiminished clarity. As I explicate the

201

202

und Naturgesetz” in Erwägungen zu einer Theologie der Natur [ed. A. M. Klaus Müller and Wolfhart Pannenberg; Gütersloh: Verglagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1970], pp. 33–80), pp. 85, 109–13; Wolfhart Pannenberg, Ethics (trans. Keith Crim; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1981; reprint, from Part I of Ethik und Ekklesiologie [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht], 1977), pp. 23–56. Wolfhart Pannenberg, What is Man? (trans. Duane A. Priebe; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970; reprint, Was ist der Mensch? Die Anthropologie der Gegenwart im Lichte der Theologie [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962 (2nd ed., 1964)]), p. 50. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Human Nature, Election, and History (Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox, 1977; reprint. These essays were lectures originally presented in English universities and then published in German the following year as Die Bestimmung des Menschen [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978]), p. 56. Similarly, Pannenberg, ST1, p. 444.

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movements of Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation I will take note of a great many of them. For our purposes here, the following example should suffice, for in it we see quite clearly the weight given to the biblical concept of faithfulness in Pannenberg’s conception of God’s ongoing involvement in creation. In the free act of God by which the world is created, [h]erein God’s faithfulness comes to expression in his creative action. The preservation of creatures is not, of course, the only form of God’s faithfulness, his holding fast (Festhalten) to his creation. We see it also in the purifying, delivering, reconciling, and consummating of his creatures. All these actions, however, include preservation as a partial element.203 It should be clear that “holding fast” is Pannenberg’s preferred idiom for referring to God’s faithfulness, but what does it mean to say, “God is faithful”? One of the senses in which Pannenberg puts the concept of “faithfulness” to work is that it describes a characteristic of God’s acts in history which reveal a divine attribute. On Pannenberg’s view, we most properly ascribe attributes to God based not on abstract concepts of causality but on God’s actions in history, which he finds to be the practice of the biblical authors.204 203 204

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 43. Concerning divine attributes, theology has traditionally rejected univocal predication (which leads to anthropomorphism) and equivocal predication (which leads to agnosticism) and taken up “analogy” as a third way for making assertions about the God who stands beyond our statements. Aquinas’ doctrine of analogy is well known, based on the concept of God as the first cause, and it is the one Pannenberg sets himself against in arguing that we most properly ascribe attributes to God based not on abstract concepts of causality but on God’s actions in history. On Pannenberg’s reading, Scholasticism failed to show that analogous predication is a third way between univocal and equivocal forms of speech or thought because these were ultimately based on the concept of God as the first cause of the world. Though Aquinas’ intention was to give expression to the infinity of God by means of the doctrine of analogy, it was up to Duns Scotus, Pannenberg argues, to register the infinite difference between God and creatures through his thesis that the conceptual form of human knowledge of God is univocal rather than primarily analogical. In doing so, Scotus demonstrated that all analogous predication demands and presupposes a univocal basis (Pannenberg, ST1, p. 344, n. 14). Pannenberg does not find Scotus denying the distance between the creature and the Creator; rather, Scotus expresses the “remoteness of human knowledge about God from the infinite God” and enables us to better distinguish between “the infinite being of God and everything finite” far better than the High Scholastic doctrine of analogous predication based on the shared causal relationship between God and creatures (Pannenberg, ST1, p. 345; similarly, pp. 364, 368, 395; cf. Catherine Pickstock, “Duns Scotus: His Historical and Contemporary Significance,” Modern Theology 21, no. 4 [2005], pp. 543–69). Pannenberg developed this critique in his Heidelberg Dissertation (1955) and later

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In the course of the discussion of divine attributes in ST1, he insists that faithfulness cannot be ascribed to God as an attribute abstractly but depends on God’s indirect revelation of himself and his love through historical events.205 Understanding Pannenberg on this point requires close attention to his related commitment that knowledge of God’s triunity is also available only through the historical life of Jesus. Pannenberg argues that knowledge of God’s triunity cannot be derived from an abstract concept (e.g., love, spirit) but is mediated instead through God’s historical acts. Within the context of the doctrine of God (chapter 6, “The Unity and Attributes of the Divine Essence), Pannenberg treats divine attributes under two categories: attributes of divine infinity and attributes of divine love. Having identified the attributes of holiness, eternity, omnipresence, and omnipotence as attributes of divine infinity,206 Pannenberg outlines faithfulness as an attribute of the divine love (along with goodness, grace, righteousness, wisdom, and patience).207 Pannenberg builds upon the same commitment to history as the medium of revelation: “As they are summed up in Exod. 34:6 (cf. Ps. 103:8; 145:8) and in the NT witness, the attributes of God’s essence as they are disclosed in his revelatory action may be understood through and through as the attributes of his love.”208 Pannenberg concludes his explication of the divine love by registering his insistence that God’s acts of love are entirely crucial for comprehending God’s triunity: “The personal distinctions among Father, Son, and Spirit cannot be derived from an abstract concept of love. We may know them only in the historical revelation of God in Jesus Christ.”209 Along the same lines, according to the biblical understanding of God’s identity, God’s being as the faithful One is not derived as “the timeless identity of a concept of

205 206 207 208 209

summarized it in RGG (Wolfhart Pannenberg, ‘Analogie und Offenbarung: Eine kritische Untersuchung zur Geschichte des Analogiebegriffs in der Lehre von der Gotteserkenntnis’ [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007], esp. pp. 123–210; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Analogie,” in RGG [ed. Hans von Campenhausen et al.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1957], pp. 350–3; see, Elizabeth A. Johnson, “The Right Way to Speak about God? Pannenberg on Analogy,” Theological Studies 43, no. 4 [1982], pp. 673–92). Against the idea that establishing statements about God begins with the concept of God as the first cause, inherent to Aquinas’ doctrine of analogous predication, Pannenberg aligns himself with Gregory of Nyssa, who replaced the idea of God as an “origin without origin” with that of infinity (Pannenberg, ST1, p. 349). Theology can meet the danger of imagining God as a finite being and thereby transgressing its responsibility to speak of God’s “inconceivable majesty” with the help of the concept of God’s infinity. See above, Section 3.2. “The Action of the ‘True Infinite.’ ” Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 436–8, 444. Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 397–422. Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 432–42. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 432. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 432.

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being” but is ascribed to God’s self-identity only as it is “demonstrated through his faithfulness in historical action characterized by its holiness, goodness, patience, righteousness, and wisdom.”210 In other words, knowledge of God’s triunity, and every other attribute for that matter, is mediated historically through the life of Jesus, which is for Pannenberg the element of truth to Rahner’s maxim of the identity between the immanent and economic Trinity. I suggested above that Pannenberg’s delineation of God’s “faithfulness” is an especially transparent instance of his effort to maintain the importance of God’s economy without depleting the transcendent sufficiency of God’s eternal self-identity. Contrary to some interpreters, Pannenberg’s account does not appear to make the eternal divine life dependent on the world’s historical processes211 but works instead to maintain the sufficiency of God’s life in se while, at the same time, seeking an increased “integration of God’s life with the historical life of the world.”212 Three salient passages read: The commonality of action of Father, Son, and Spirit can be only a manifestation of the unity of life and essence by which they are always linked already (immer verbunden schon).213 In his eternity God is present at all times and the goal of his action, the manifestation of his lordship over the world of creation, does not make good a lack in his eternal being but incorporates his creatures into the eternal fellowship of the Son with the Father through the Spirit. To this extent the action of God in the world is a repetition or reiteration (Widerholung) of his eternal deity in his relation to the world.214 The trinitarian God is complete in himself prior to his relation to the world, and this is the presupposition of the idea that he is his own cause. When applied to the relation between the immanent and 210

211 212

213 214

Pannenberg, ST1, p. 444 (author’s translation. Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 1, p. 479). See n. 20 above in the Introduction. Sanders, Image of the Immanent Trinity, p. 97. Pannenberg’s critical evaluation of Robert Jenson’s doctrine of the Trinity is telling in this regard: “It is certainly true that that trinitarian God in the history of salvation is the same God as in the eternal life. But there is also a necessary distinction that maintains the priority of the eternal communion of the triune God over the communion’s explication in the history of salvation.” (Pannenberg, “A Trinitarian Synthesis,” pp. 49–53. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 385; Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 1, p. 417. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 391; Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 1, p. 422. Pannenberg is careful to differentiate his use of Wiederholung from Barth and Jüngel, saying, “We apply the concept here to the self-revelation of God in the world, not to the intratrinitarian relation of Father and Son, the latter application being ruled out by the fact that with the Son the Father is not a self-contained entity that can be repeated” (Pannenberg, ST1, p. 389, n. 116).

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economic Trinity the thought does not express a theogony; it expresses the inner dynamic of the self-identity (Selbstidentität) of the trinitarian God in his relation to creation.215 In Pannenberg’s presentation in ST, the immanent Trinity—God’s life of infinite, eternal plenitude—maintains a kind of “priority” in Pannenberg’s over the economic Trinity such that the attributes ascribed to God from his economy are expressions of his eternal identity rather than attributes God acquires through his acts in history. This points again to my suggestion that there exists an asymmetrical relationship between the two in ST. Pannenberg’s account of God’s faithfulness maps onto this insistence. Drawing upon the testimony of the Psalms he describes divine faithfulness as “the identity and consistency of the eternal God in his turning in love to his creatures.”216 Pannenberg emphasizes the eternal identity of God with reference to his historical acts as the outflow of his immanent life rather than God becoming faithful through his acts. I observe other instances of the eternal, trinitarian grounding of God’s faithfulness in ST at various points throughout my study, but at this point it is instructive to note that Pannenberg foreshadows those instances by distinguishing “faithfulness” from “immutability” in his discussion of the divine attributes. On Pannenberg’s view, the faithfulness of God does not indicate his timeless unchangeability but his “constancy in the actual process of time and history, and especially his holding fast to his saving will [Festhalten an seinem Heilswillen], to his covenant, to his promises, and also to the orders of creation.”217 In this affirmation he attempts to shift our view of God’s eternality so that it can include real changes in God, such as the incarnation and atonement, without sacrificing God’s faithfulness to his own identity. Related to the Christ-event, it is entirely characteristic of the trinitarian shape of ST that Pannenberg grounds the faithfulness of God’s acts in the mutual relations of the divine persons of Father, Son, and Spirit; the reality that God is faithful and acts faithfully “proceeds from the mutual faithfulness of the Son to the Father and the Father to the Son.”218 In other words, God’s demonstrated faithfulness in and through his reconciling acts derive from the relations of faithfulness existing within the eternal Godhead. In sum, in the same way we know God’s triunity through the life of Jesus, so we know God’s faithfulness through God’s historical reconciling acts. 215

216 217

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Pannenberg, ST1, p. 391; Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 1, p. 425. Related to Pannenberg’s demarcation of God as causa sui (self-caused) also see Pannenberg, ST2, p. 393. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 436. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 437. Similarly, Pannenberg, “Philosophical Concept of God,” pp. 161–3. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 53.

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Love is not “an abstract master concept but the concrete reality itself” that is found in God’s faithfulness.219 God’s faithfulness expresses his consistency to his eternal self-identity manifested through his reconciling action toward alienated creation. Put another way, in God’s reconciling acts the form of his love is his faithfulness; the eternal love of God is exhibited through his faithfulness to creation manifested in his promise-making and promise-keeping activity and most tangibly found in the economy of salvation. Faithfulness names God’s movement ad extra to his creation. We might say, then, that by moving the doctrine of reconciliation into the register of divine faithfulness, Pannenberg secures an historical tenor to the entire presentation such that the entire process from anticipation to actualization to consummation is inherently necessary—not necessary for God’s eternal faithfulness in se but for testimony of his faithfulness to be given. Given Pannenberg’s formulation of the relationship between God’s actions in history and the attribution of characteristics such as faithfulness and love, Alister McGrath’s critique that Pannenberg’s depiction of the crucifixion ascribes it no epistemological significance, that it does not in fact “disclose God, even though we are reconciled to him on its basis,” is surprising and represents a rather shallow reading of ST.220 Specifically, it fails to attend to the synthetic relationships Pannenberg forms within ST. For example, related to the relationship between his doctrine of God and reconciliation, Pannenberg has and continues to demonstrate that the cross reveals the intratrinitarian love of the Father and the Son, that Jesus is the eternal Son, and in his self-distinction from the Father he “executes” God’s rule. Rather than having no epistemological significance, Pannenberg’s delineation of the cross is an attempt to reveal its profound trinitarian relevance.221 We find a further example is found in Pannenberg’s interaction with the questions of evil, theodicy, and the relationship he forms there between the cross and God’s responsibility-taking for evil. Pannenberg contends that while evil has its origin in the freedom of creatures to decide and act, God is not absolved from his responsibility for creating just such a world. Rather, the crucifixion is the definitive and dramatic demonstration that God “bore responsibility for the world he created.”222 Appealing to God’s faithfulness to fallen creation Pannenberg writes: The Creator accepts the risk of sin and evil as a condition of realizing the goal of a free fellowship of the creature with himself. God did 219 220 221

222

Pannenberg, ST1, p. 432. McGrath, Modern German Christology, 2nd ed., p. 198. See Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 313–14. Similarly, Jonathan Case, “The Death of Jesus and the Truth of the Triune God in Wolfhart Pannenberg and Eberhard Jüngel,” Journal for Christian Theological Research 9 (2004), pp. 3–6. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 166. Emphasis mine.

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not will wickedness and evil as such. . . . Nevertheless, they are in fact accompanying phenomena. As such they are conditions of the realizing of his purpose for the creature, and they come under his world government, which can bring good out of evil, being oriented to the reconciliation and redemption of the world through Jesus Christ.223 Far from an event with no epistemological significance, Pannenberg sees in the crucifixion a stunning demonstration that God expresses (and thereby reveals) his love and faithfulness as cruciform love, one that bears the painful coresponsibility for sin and evil in Christ’s death. So costly in fact, on Pannenberg’s account, that as Creator “Evil is thus real and costly enough for God himself as well as for creatures.”224 In the final part of chapter 11, Pannenberg takes up the role of the gospel message and its proclamation in the process of God’s reconciling action. This discussion serves as a transition to the following three chapters, in which Pannenberg will explicate the role of the Spirit’s “completing,” or “actualizing,” activity and, woven together with this, the participation of the church in God’s turning in love toward the world in his work of reconciliation. In the following chapter we will see how Pannenberg forms a “subtly differentiated unity” between the accomplished work of reconciliation in Christ’s passion and its actualization by the Spirit through which people enter into to the reality of reconciliation made effective in Christ.225

223 224 225

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 167. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 169. I am indebted here to Gunther Wenz for the term “subtly differentiated unity” (Wenz, Wolfhart Pannenbergs Systematische Theologie, p. 196).

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2 the actualization of reconciliation

It’s become commonplace of recent scholarship that successive trinitarian revivals have slighted the Holy Spirit. Whether a theologian has anything interesting to say about the Spirit has emerged as heuristic. —Eugene Rogers, After the Spirit

Eugene Rogers identifies Karl Barth as a representative example of the tendency, noted in the epigraph above, to slight the Holy Spirit in recent trinitarian revivals. He finds it altogether indicative of the problem that while Barth has twenty-one hundred pages with “Spirit” in boldface theses and more than one book with “Spirit” in the title, his doctrine of the Spirit is subsumed into Christology, “as if there is nothing the Spirit can do that Christ can’t do better.”1 Rogers grants Barth’s stress on the Spirit’s work to enable creaturely response to God but still finds him eclipsing the illumination of the Spirit with the “objectivity of the Son” and reducing the Spirit to his “power” or “promise.”2 Pannenberg identifies the same tendency in Barth, according the Spirit the function of being the “power in which Jesus bears witness to himself.”3 Finding Barth’s account reductionistic, he contends for something more robust, a doctrine of the Spirit in which his activity is intimately tied to but differentiated from the work of the Son. He explains: Because it is not the essence of God’s Spirit to be just an emanation of Jesus Christ, the fact that he does indeed come from the risen Lord and is imparted by him to believers needs special grounding. This is given 1

2

3

Eugene F. Rogers Jr., After the Spirit: A Constructive Pneumatology from Resources outside the Modern West (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), p. 20. Rogers, After the Spirit, pp. 20–1. For a contrasting view consider, Travis Ables, “The Grammar of Pneumatology in Barth and Rahner: A Reconsideration,” IJST 11, no. 2 (April 2009), pp. 209–24. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 5. Pannenberg cites Barth, CD IV/1, pp. 645, 147–8, 748.

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us by the fact that as the risen Lord Jesus is inseparably linked to the Spirit and his life, and that in the light of the Easter event his pre-Easter life, too, is seen to be filled by God’s Spirit.4 Pannenberg draws out this connection between the work of the earthly Jesus and that of the Spirit by offering a reading of selected Pauline and Johannine material related to Christ’s resurrection (e.g., Rom. 8.9-10; 2 Cor. 3.17, 5.20, 12.19, 13.3; Jn 14.15-21; 16.5-15). Pannenberg sees the Spirit’s work to glorify the Son most clearly in the Gospel of John: “The sending of the Spirit by the Son relates, then, to the special nature of his work in connection with the revelation of salvation. The Spirit glorifies Jesus as the Father’s Son by teaching us to recognize the revelation of the Father in Jesus’ words and work.”5 While the previous chapter explored reconciliation’s anticipation, the present chapter studies the work of the Spirit in reconciliation’s actualization (or “completion”).6 We proceed in three parts. In Section 1, we establish the context for the subsequent study by drawing out three hallmarks of Pannenberg’s account: The Spirit within the Trinity, the Spirit’s work related to human independence, and the Spirit and human ecstasy. The second and third sections study the relationship between divine and human action in the making “actual,”7 or completion,8 of reconciliation by the Spirit. Pannenberg’s intention to avoid deterministic formulations of God and his corresponding eschatological emphasis runs especially close to the surface here.9 In light of his worries about determinism, he addresses the classic issues between divine creative causality and human created causality by appropriating theories from the natural sciences. His account of this relationship works to maintain both human and divine causality in the act of faith. Considering his emphasis on the renewal of human independence throughout the dogmatics, his account of reconciliation’s realization must navigate these questions carefully in order to retain both poles.

4 5 6

7

8

9

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 6. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 5. Pannenberg’s pneumatology is not restricted to one chapter or section but permeates his dogmatics. The person of the Spirit and his works Spirit are dealt with in the various contexts such as the doctrine of God, creation, anthropology, Christology, reconciliation, ecclesiology, and eschatology. See, for example, Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 2, p. 498: “Durch den Geist wird die im Kreuzestod Jesu Christi von Gott her geschehene Versöhnung bei ihren Empfängern, den zu versöhnenden Menschen realisiert.” For example, Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 2, p. 496: “c) Die Vollendung der Versöhnung im Geist.” See Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Providence, God and Eschatology,” in The Whirlwind of Culture (ed. D. Musser and J. Price; Bloomington: Meyer-Stone, 1988), p. 175.

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THE ACTUALIZATION OF RECONCILIATION

In doing so, Pannenberg characteristically renders the Spirit’s activity with variations on the terms “vollenden” and “realisieren” to indicate how the Spirit unites the already and not-yet aspects of divine reconciliation— reconciliation “anticipated” and “actualized.” Thus, Pannenberg will refer to reconciliation’s “completion” (Vollendung) in reference to both its temporal realization in the appropriation of divine revelation and to its final consummation, or completion, in the eschaton. Reconciliation’s present actualization in human persons has, then, in Pannenberg’s account a finality about it; it is sure and secure (complete in that sense) by the Spirit, although it awaits its final completion in the coming of the kingdom of God. I will therefore be using the words “actualization,” “realization,” and “completion” interchangeably, as the English rendering of ST does as well. In our exploration of reconciliation’s completion in the eschaton, Chapter 4, we will have occasion to return to Pannenberg’s use of language in greater detail. Toward explicating the nature of Pannenberg’s pneumatologically robust account of reconciliation’s realization, we look first at the three hallmarks which characterize his account. These characteristics emerge often, and outlining with them here gives us a point of reference for subsequent discussions.

1. Three Hallmarks of Pannenberg’s Doctrine of the Spirit The three hallmarks of Pannenberg’s doctrine of the spirit are as follows: (1) Just as Pannenberg explicated God’s reconciling work in the crucifixion as a thoroughly trinitarian action, his account of the completion of reconciliation in human beings, its actualization, is comprehensively trinitarian as well. (2) The theme of human independence and its necessary renewal, which ran throughout his portrayal of the Christ-event, is present here as well. (3) To describe the work of the Spirit in completing the process of reconciliation, Pannenberg draws upon the concept of “human eccentricity.”

1.1. The Spirit and the Trinity In the previous chapter, we outlined Pannenberg’s doctrine of the Trinity according to three distinguishing marks: self-distinction, mutual dependence, and the relationship between the immanent and economic Trinity (see above, pp. 40–47). Our analysis here builds on that discussion and focuses specifically on the Spirit in the triune life. The Spirit’s reconciliation-completing activity is conditioned, on Pannenberg’s view, by the nature of the Spirit’s eternal relationship to the Father and the Son. The Son’s self-distinction from the Father in 73

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the economy of salvation through Jesus’ acceptance of death flows from the character of the Son’s eternal relationship to the Father as one of selfdistinction. Likewise, Pannenberg understands the Spirit’s work in the economy according to the character of the intratrinitarian relations as well. Within the Godhead, Pannenberg writes, the Spirit comes forth as a distinct hypostasis “as he comes over against the Father and the Son as the divine essence common to both which actually unites them and also attests and maintains their unity in face of their distinction.”10 Accordingly, Pannenberg argues that the task of delineating the work of the Spirit in the economy of salvation should be sought “in his function of mediating the fellowship of the Son with the Father.”11 Thus, when Pannenberg describes the work of the Spirit in the economy, he argues, “Only on this basis [the Spirit’s place in the eternal fellowship as the condition and medium of the fellowship between the Father and the Son] may the imparting of the Spirit to believers be seen as their incorporation into the fellowship of the Son with the Father.”12 What we see here related to the Spirit is characteristic for Pannenberg’s account of appropriations throughout ST: the shape of divine action is determined by the character of the intratrinitarian relations. As it is in the Godhead, so it is in the divine economy: the Spirit is the person of the Trinity who “relates what is distinct, both within the being of God and between God and created things.”13 By grounding the nature of the Spirit’s activity in the relationships of mutual self-distinction between the divine persons, Pannenberg’s account of reconciliation’s completion is funded by his view of the divine life and the character of its relations. Recalling our discussion in the previous chapter, I showed that the Christevent was a cooperative action between the Son and the Father. We see the same move repeated in Pannenberg’s description of the Spirit’s work to complete reconciliation: the action of the exalted Lord and the Spirit are “different aspects of one and the same divine action for the reconciliation of the world.”14 However, Pannenberg formulates their cooperation in ways designed to avoid the key weakness that he perceives in Barth’s pneumatology—a restriction of the Spirit’s work, so that the Spirit is 10

11 12

13 14

Anselm K. Min, “The Dialectic of Divine Love: Pannenberg’s Hegelian Trinitarianism,” IJST 6, no. 3 (2004), p. 259. Cf. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 429. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 268. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 316. Pannenberg had said essentially the same in JGM: “In that the Spirit is essentially the Spirit of Sonship, even as he is imparted to Christians, in that the Spirit is the Spirit who joins the Son with the Father, so that the Holy Spirit of God is here recognizable as the Spirit of the community of Father and Son” (Pannenberg, JGM, p. 176). Mostert, God and the Future, p. 171. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 450. Cf. Rom. 5.9, 11, 6.3, 8.9–10; 1 Cor. 6.11, 16, 12.13, 15.4; 2 Cor. 3.17, 3.8, 5.20.

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identified merely as the “power that witnesses to Jesus” or as an “emanation” from him.15 The problem, in short, lies in Barth’s failure to give sufficient weight to the Spirit’s “personal independence in the trinitarian life” and thus in the economy of salvation.16 Against dissolving the Spirit’s work into the witness of the Son, Pannenberg marks out the cooperative activity of the Son along the lines of a differentiated unity. Pannenberg addresses this most directly in the opening section of chapter 12. Based on his exegesis of various passages in Acts, 1 Peter, and the Gospel of John, Pannenberg argues that the special function of the Son’s sending of the Spirit is related to the revelation of salvation.17 These passages should not lead us to believe, however, that the Spirit is the “power in which Jesus bears witness to himself” (as Pannenberg finds in Barth). No, even though many New Testament passages describe the Spirit’s work and that of the Son in almost interchangeable terms, “distinction surely arises between the Spirit and the Son by reason of the fact that in the NT testimonies and in Paul, Jesus himself is seen as a recipient of the Spirit and his work.”18 Exegetical sections such as this one are important for the systematic coherence of Pannenberg presentation. The unity of the Godhead, marked out by Pannenberg in terms of relations of mutual self-distinction, must be brought together with an account of divine action that reflects a similar differentiated unity. Thus, Pannenberg goes to great lengths in sections such as this one to preserve that unity-in-distinction. Another example might be Pannenberg’s appropriation of field theory, in which he finds an appropriate metaphor for describing the Spirit as the divine essence who unites the Father and the Son and is common to them both and the Spirit’s work as a distinct divine person with its own center of action.19

15

16

17 18 19

See Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 5–7, with reference to Barth, CD IV/1, pp. 645, 147–8, 748. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 5, n. 20. Shin’s study illustrates how easily Pannenberg’s stress on the differentiated unity of divine action can be missed. While recognizing Pannenberg’s stress on the unity of the Son and Spirit, Shin fails to appreciate the differentiated character of that unity and risks the same problem Pannenberg finds in Barth. Shin writes, for example, “It is demonstratable that the Son continues his reconciling action in the Spirit through the Gospel for the complete realization of the Lordship of the Father” (Shin, “Reconciliation of the world,” p. 287; similarly, p. 289). Pannenberg would be less likely to say that the “Son continues his reconciling action in the Spirit” as he would that “the triune God continues his reconciling action in the Spirit” in order that the triune character of divine action is more readily apparent in the appropriation (see Pannenberg, ST1, p. 267). Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 4–5. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 5. Cf. Min, “Dialectic of Divine Love,” pp. 256–9; Anselm K. Min, Paths to the Triune God (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005), p. 270.

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1.2. The Renewal of Human Independence The renewal of human independence is a thread running throughout Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation. For Pannenberg, humanity’s destiny for fellowship with God can only by realized with a restoration of human independence that does not compromise its integrity. Related to the Christevent, we saw how Pannenberg’s view of the crucifixion (“representation”) safeguards human independence through a sustained critique of Barth’s version of representation. Speaking of the human recipients of God’s reconciling act as having a part in the Christ-event by being represented, as Pannenberg finds Barth doing, destroys rather than renews creaturely independence. So Pannenberg works instead toward conceiving Christ’s representation in a way that does not entail “the replacement and suppression of those in whose place the Son of God came.”20 Jesus’ death was expiatory precisely as a death of representation. In death, Jesus fully accepted his creaturely finitude, and through this act the Son of God fully differentiated himself from the Father. In so doing, he represents all humanity and makes their acceptance of finitude possible. For individuals to be restored to the destiny for which they were created, fellowship with God in creaturely community, they must accept their “finitude as Godgiven”21 and embrace their existence under the rule of an infinite God. Pannenberg writes elsewhere that, as individuals “subordinate” themselves to God, “the Son in his relationship to the Father becomes manifest in the lives of human beings,” and their independent existence is fully accomplished.22 Grounding this move in the Trinity, Pannenberg writes, “In other words, we must be fashioned into the image of the Son, of his self-distinction from the Father.”23 Jesus’ death, as representative, “made room” alongside the Father for others to accept their finitude and be restored to this destiny of fellowship with God. Pannenberg explains: As he [Jesus] is united to the Father as the Son precisely in his selfdistinction from him, he vicariously reconciles in his own person the independence of humans and all creatures to God. He is thus the Mediator between God and us (1 Tim. 2:5). He is so by his death, for the acceptance of death was the extreme consequence of the self-distinction of the Son from the Father, and by it he made room not only for the glory of God but also for the existence of others alongside Jesus.24

20 21 22 23 24

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 431. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 230. Pannenberg, IST, p. 52. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 230. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 450.

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The Christ-event made reconciliation, then, a completed reality but not a completed process. It is revealed and effective but open and waiting to be completed in the lives of individuals. On Pannenberg’s account, then, the Spirit’s work has a critical function: “Salvation has not yet been definitively actualized already for humanity merely by the mission of the Son. It will be so only when the work of the Spirit completes it, the work of the Spirit being to bear witness to, and glorify, the Son and the work of the Son in the hearts of believers.”25 Through the Spirit’s power and activity, the triune God makes “active” his saving future that is present in and through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Pannenberg describes the relationship between the Son’s self-distinction and the corresponding self-distinction of individuals in the register of “love,” specifically one’s love for God. “We love God by letting him be God to us as Jesus let the Father be God to him, by letting him be our God, our Father, and thus by putting our trust and confidence in him.”26 Running close to the surface here is Pannenberg’s interpretation of the Son as a “structural archetype” of the creature’s destiny for fellowship with God, which he unpacks in his doctrine of creation (chapter 7).27 The Son makes room for others alongside the Father, anticipating the reconciliation of creatures to their destiny, but the completion of their destiny is only achieved, or realized, by the work of the Spirit. When the Spirit completes reconciliation, it “is not just a later appropriating of the fruit of the once-for-all event in the death of Jesus. By baptism, believers are inserted into the death of Jesus (Rom. 6:3).”28 They are inserted by the Spirit into the space created by Jesus’ death and resurrection. Along parallel lines, we might describe the Spirit’s activity as “inclusive”; through it, Christ’s atoning work realizes itself so that individuals “enter into the reality of reconciliation revealed and effective in Jesus Christ.”29 Rendering the individual’s relationship to reconciliation as “entering into,” as Gunther Wenz does, is more in keeping with Pannenberg’s intimate language of the Spirit than Hyun Soo Shin’s language of “application” to describe the work of the Spirit who “appl[ies] this all-sufficient work of reconciliation.”30 Pertaining to the renewal of independence, just as Christ’s act of representation leaves room for “creaturely independence” (geschöpfliche Selbständigkeit), so the Spirit’s work to complete reconciliation does the same: human

25 26 27

28 29 30

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 551. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 193. Christoph Schwöbel, “Wolfhart Pannenberg,” in The Modern Theologians: An Introduction to Christian Theology in the Twentieth Century (ed. David F. Ford; Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), p. 196. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 451. Wenz, Wolfhart Pannenbergs Systematische Theologie, p. 196. Shin, “Reconciliation of the world,” p. 289.

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independence must “not be set aside, but renewed.”31 For this to occur, Pannenberg stresses that reconciliation’s completion cannot come upon us solely as an outside force; rather, our reconciliation to God must “happen on our side as well.”32 Pannenberg’s aversion to extrinsicist notions of divine action is not isolated to this one instance alone; as we saw in the previous chapter the same aversion surfaced regarding his explication of Christ’s inclusive death. The criticisms Pannenberg levels against Augustinian notions of election are telling as well. On account of their reaction to “Pelagian” tendencies in Scholastic doctrines of grace and predestination, the Reformers, including Luther and Calvin, “inclined toward the rigorism of Augustine.”33 In doing so, Pannenberg argues that these conceptions (more so Calvin than Luther) undermine a proper account of human agency by leaving too little space for human independence, devalue the word of the gospel, and call into question God’s universal will to save. Even the dogmatic ordering of ST points to Pannenberg’s unwillingness to use the doctrine of election as an answer to the question of who does and does not come to faith; his treatment of election is embedded within his ecclesiology rather than soteriology or the doctrine of God. Or, one might say, Pannenberg is simply being thoroughly Lutheran by avoiding terms—such as “irresistible grace”—that have traditionally accompanied Augustinian doctrines of election.34 Either way, the point is the same; Pannenberg works carefully throughout the doctrine of reconciliation to develop an account which, in the patterns of encounter between divine and human activity, holds together both the free, reconciling action of God and the uniquely contingent, independent movements of the individual. How Pannenberg does so at each point continues to be a point of particular interest in this study and one which the following discussion clearly demonstrates. Pannenberg’s formulation carefully distinguishes between the efficacy of the Spirit on one hand and the individual existence of the creature on the other. While the death of the Son “made room” for others to share in the filial relationship between the Father and Son, people can only share in 31 32 33

34

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 450. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 450. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 446. Pannenberg grants Luther a more “complex” treatment than Calvin in that Luther “on the one hand stressed the necessity that God’s hidden will imposes on all that happens but on the other hand he set over against the unsearchable decree of the hidden God the will of the revealed God to save, and counseled us to hold fast to the latter under every assault” (ST3, p. 445). “Therefore regeneration is likewise on the part of God indeed perfect, since He endeavors to effect regeneration perfectly in man . . . on the side of man, however, only more or less perfect as he permits this grace of the Holy Spirit to be entirely or only partially efficacious in him” (Heinrich Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church [trans. Charles A. Hay and Henry E. Jacobs; 3rd, rev. ed.; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1899], p. 459).

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the fellowship, can only step into that space, when they are “taken up” into the divine fellowship. This requires the person to be “lifted above” his or her own finitude so that by faith he or she can share in Jesus Christ and in the event of reconciliation.35 Just as Jesus accepted his finitude in death, so creaturely independence can only be restored when one accepts their finitude before the infinite God. In accounting for the restoration of human independence, Pannenberg emphasizes the internal rather than external nature of the Spirit’s work. This taking up is not simply in the sense of an event that happens to them from the outside, but as a liberation to their real identity, though not from their own power. This happens through the Spirit. For through the Spirit, the reconciliation between God and creatures comes upon us not only from the outside, but we ourselves enter into it.36 Both points of Pannenberg’s emphasis need to be unpacked. First, Pannenberg’s intent is clearly to attribute the power of reconciliation to the Spirit. The act of being taken up into fellowship does not occur by the power of the one being taken up; rather, it is the Spirit who “enables us through faith” to accept our finitude; by doing so he completes our reconciliation.37 He wants to ensure that the completion of reconciliation is just as much a divine work as was the Father’s sending of the Son and the Son’s obedience to death. Second, he stresses that the act of being taken up is something that “comes upon us not only from the outside but we ourselves enter into it.” Pannenberg is suggesting here that there exists a natural “fit” between who we are as creatures and who we become in being reconciled, which on Pannenberg’s account involves talk of the “eccentricity” of created beings.

1.3. Ecstasy and the Eccentric Character of All Life The Spirit’s activity is that which “takes up” the believer in an “ecstatic” sense beyond itself into the fellowship shared between the Father and the Son. On Pannenberg’s view, there is nothing “unnatural about this ecstasy” because spiritual life is inherently ecstatic; thus the Spirit’s ecstatic work

35 36

37

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 451. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 450 (author’s translation. Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 2, p. 497). Pannenberg, ST2, p. 454. Similarly, “By the power of the Spirit, then, Christians are incorporated into the body of Christ (1 Cor. 6:17), which itself by the resurrection is a pneumatic reality (1 Cor. 15:4f.)” (ST2, p. 451); “By the Spirit, believers are capable of this self-distinction from Jesus, who is in person the eternal Son of the Father” (ST2, p. 453).

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“actualize[s] in a special way the distinctiveness of living things.”38 This is so, he contends, because all life has an eccentric or “transcendent” element. Living creatures exist beyond themselves in relation to a given ecological context, seeking food and nourishing themselves from their surroundings.39 In this biological reality Pannenberg finds the creative function of God’s Spirit. The Spirit “animates creatures in raising them beyond themselves to participate in some measure in the life of the triune God” and is thus in some sense “operative” in all living creatures.40 The result of this “ecstatic” being with Christ through the Spirit is fellowship, sharing in the filial relationship of the Father and the Son. True to his continuous emphasis on the renewal of human independence, Pannenberg contends that being outside the self does not compromise the creaturely independence fundamental to experiencing fellowship with God. Those who believe in Jesus are “not estranged from themselves,” Pannenberg explains, for with Jesus they are with God, who is the origin of the finite existence of all creatures and their specific destiny. For this reason being outside the self through the Spirit and in faith in Jesus Christ means liberation, not merely in the sense of elevation above our own finitude, but also in the sense of attaining afresh by this elevation to our own existence as the Creator has affirmed it and reconciled it to himself.41 Here, Pannenberg explicates an important connection between the Spirit’s activity in creation and reconciliation. The liberation wrought by the Spirit means attaining afresh to “our own existence as the Creator has affirmed it and reconciled it to himself.”42 Grasping the dogmatic connection Pannenberg forms between the doctrines of creation and reconciliation is immensely important for understanding his account of the Spirit’s work of completing

38

39

40 41 42

Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 451–2. Similarly Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 134–5. As early as 1983 Pannenberg looked to Luther’s concept of extra se Christo to urge that the authentic self “is realized outside ourselves in Christ” (Wolfhart Pannenberg, Christian Spirituality [Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983]), p. 109; later, Pannenberg, ATP, p. 71. On the development of Pannenberg’s concept of “exocentricity” see Shults, Postfoundationalist Task of Theology, pp. 178–203; Philip Hefner, “The Role of Science in Pannenberg’s Theological Thinking,” Zygon 24, no. 2 (1989), pp. 143–4. Pannenberg, IST, pp. 44–7. Pannenberg references Ps. 104.21. See, Hefner, “Role of Science,” pp. 142–4. Pannenberg, IST, p. 45. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 452. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 452. Similarly, Pannenberg, JGM, pp. 176–9.

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reconciliation. For Pannenberg, the Spirit is the one who “completes and perfects” the work begun in creation.43 Here we should point out two characteristics of Pannenberg’s account of the ecstatic nature of reconciliation. First, ecstatic fellowship should not be misinterpreted as mystical union. Being in Christ through the Spirit does not mean “they merge into Christ or through him into God.”44 This would defeat the central purpose of Christ’s sacrificial death: the renewal and transformation of creaturely independence. For individuals to share in the self-distinction of the Son from the Father and be represented by the death of Jesus on the cross, they must accept the “difference between their own existence” and their Creator and in so doing differentiate themselves from God as Jesus did.45 For Pannenberg, then, sharing in the “sonship” of Jesus through their self-distinction from him and acceptance of their creatureliness before God frees believers for immediacy with God. Lest one think Pannenberg’s view of the Spirit is entirely individualistic, he relates the work of the Spirit as well to the community of faith, the church. As each individual believer is lifted above themselves by the Spirit, [t]hey are at the same time integrated into the fellowship of believers. Each by faith is related to the one Lord and hence to all believers. By the Spirit each is lifted above individual particularity in order “in Christ” to form with all other believers the fellowship of the church.46 Second, the Spirit’s work lifts believers above themselves, not in “bondage to another,” but to participation in the filial relationship between the Father and the Son. Pannenberg explains, “Those who believe in Jesus are thus not estranged from themselves, for with Jesus they are with God, who is the origin of the finite existence of all creatures and their specific destiny.”47 43

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Schwöbel, “Rational Theology,” p. 515. Similarly Grenz, Reason for Hope, p. 176; Mostert, God and the Future, p. 169; Rise, Christology of Wolfhart Pannenberg, pp. 109–23; Cornelius Buller, The Unity of Nature and History in Pannenberg’s Theology (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1996), pp. 122–6. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 452. We will explore Pannenberg’s relationship to the mystical tradition in the following chapter. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 452. Pannenberg earlier described this in terms of humility: “The Spirit of the knowledge of God in Jesus is the Spirit of God only insofar as believers distinguish themselves in such knowledge from God as creatures and from Jesus Christ as “servants” of the Lord: precisely in the humility of this self-distinction from God that avoids all mystical exuberance, believers prove themselves to possess God’s Spirit and thus to participate in God himself” (Pannenberg, JGM, p. 176. Emphasis mine). Pannenberg, ST3, p. 13. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 452. In saying this Pannenberg is differentiating the ecstasy of the Spirit from other types of ecstatic behavior. Self-forgetfulness, fury, and frenzy are essentially ecstatic, but they lead “structurally to the basic form of concupiscence as Augustine described it.”

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In faith, believers share in the self-distinction of the Son from the Father and thus overcome sin’s alienation. Future resurrection is guaranteed, participation in the eternal life of God is made possible, and they experience immediacy with God in the present.48 Within Pannenberg’s presentation, then, the restoration of creaturely independence is the point in which the Spirit plays a decisive role. In order to preserve the creature’s independence, to renew it and move him or her toward the fulfillment of their destiny, the Spirit works internally rather than externally to the creature. PANNENBERG’S Pneumatology and its relationship to his doctrine of revelation have not been without their critics. Some find Pannenberg substituting the Spirit’s work with rationality, thereby leaving little or no room for the Spirit in our assent to divine revelation. Others see in Pannenberg’s thought far too little of the noetic effects of the fall; he appears to give human rationality in its sinful state too much credit for its capacity to perceive divine revelation independent of the Spirit’s activity. Iain Taylor provides a particularly careful assessment along these lines. For Taylor, Pannenberg’s account of how human persons come to understand God’s revelation underemphasizes the Spirit’s activity that grants “eyes to see” and places far too much weight on human rationality.49 Pannenberg’s account, Taylor contends, contains an “empty space” in which “knowers” are “immune from the presence and work of the triune God.”50 To grasp the issues at stake in Taylor’s critique we need to take a detour through Pannenberg’s doctrine of creation, appropriation of contemporary field theories, and view of eternity and eschatology in order to tease apart the Spirit’s relation to creation. The synthetic connections between the eccentricity of creaturely life and the Spirit’s ecstatic activity is central for understanding Pannenberg’s account of the Spirit’s work that completes reconciliation. We then will be in a position to consider Taylor’s assessment in a way that helps advance our understanding of Pannenberg. My contention is straightforward: Pannenberg’s critics on his view of revelation and faith fail to read those doctrines in light of his doctrine of the Spirit.

2. The Spirit’s Activity in Creation and Reconciliation On Pannenberg’s view, the Spirit’s work to complete reconciliation does not destroy or set aside human independence because this work of the Spirit is inherently connected to the Spirit’s work in creating the world. For Pannenberg, “the work of the Spirit in reconciliation is in continuity with his creative 48 49 50

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 453. Similarly Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 11, 16. Taylor, Triune God, p. 198. Taylor, Triune God, p. 200.

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work as God’s mighty breath and the origin of all life and movement, and must be understood only against this background.”51 Our exposition in this section draws primarily from Pannenberg’s dogmatics but will occasionally refer to earlier works or more recent publications when they highlight the progression of Pannenberg’s theology or speak to specific themes more succinctly. Our intention here is not a sustained exposition of Pannenberg’s interaction with, and use of, the physical and natural sciences52 or the manner of its reception among theologians and 51 52

Taylor, Triune God, p. 139. For resources outside Systematic Theology see Niels Henrik Gregersen, ed., The Historicity of Nature: Essays on Science and Theology (West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Foundation Press, 2007); Pannenberg, “Problems between Science and Theology,” pp. 105–12; Pannenberg, “Intellectual Pilgrimage,” esp. p. 190; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Der Glaube an Gott und die Welt der Natur,” TLZ 131, no. 2 (2006), pp. 124–30; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Contributions from Systematic Theology,” pp. 359–71; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Notes on the Alleged Conflict between Religion and Science,” Zygon 40, no. 3 (2005), pp. 585–8; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “A Scientific Theology,” Theology Today 59, no. 2 (2002), pp. 312–15; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Concept of Miracle,” Zygon 37, no. 3 (2002), pp. 759–62; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Facing Up: Science and Its Cultural Adversaries,” First Things (August/September 2002), www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=2046 (accessed on March 24, 2009); Wolfhart Pannenberg, “God as Spirit and Natural Science,” Zygon 36, no. 4 (2001), pp. 783–94; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Response to John Polkinghorne,” Zygon 36, no. 4 (2001), pp. 798–9; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Faith in God the Creator and Scientific Cosmology,” Communio 28, no. 3 (2001), pp. 450–63; Wolfhart Pannenberg, Beiträge zur Systematischen Theologie, Band 2: Natur und Mensch - und die Zukunft der Schöpfung (vol. 2; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), esp. pp. 11–140; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Theological Appropriation of Scientific Understandings: Response to Hefner, Wicken, Eaves, and Tipler,” in Beginning with the End: God, Science, and Wolfhart Pannenberg (ed. Carol Rausch Albright and Joel Haugen; Chicago: Open Court, 1997), pp. 427–44; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Modern Cosmology: God and the Resurrection of the Dead,” Innsbrook Conference on Frank Tipler’s Book The Physics of Immortality (1997), www.math.tulane.edu/~tipler/tipler/tipler3.html (accessed on October 24, 2007); Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Creation and the Theory of Evolution,” The Boardman Lectureship in Christian Ethics (Founded 1899) in Cooperation with the Center for Theology and The Natural Sciences and The John Templeton Foundation (1997), http://repository.upenn.edu/boardman/6 (accessed on October 24, 2007); Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Emergence of Creatures and their Succession in a Developing Universe,” ATJ 50, no. 1 (1995), pp. 17–25; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Theology of Creation and Natural Science,” ATJ 50, no. 1 (1995), pp. 5–16; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Breaking a Taboo: Frank Tipler’s The Physics of Immortality,” Zygon 30, no. 2 (1995), pp. 300–14; various essays in Ted Peters, ed., Toward a Theology of Nature: Essays on Science and Faith (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1993); Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Doctrine of Creation and Modern Science,” Zygon 23, no. 1 (1988), pp. 3–21; Pannenberg, “God’s Presence in History,” esp. p. 262; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Doctrine of the Spirit and the Task of a Theology of Nature,” Theology 75 (1972), pp. 8–21.

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scientists.53 Rather, we limit ourselves to those resources and questions that best enable us to draw out Pannenberg’s formulation of the Spirit’s role in creation for the purpose of explicating the Spirit’s related work in reconciliation. In one of Pannenberg’s first essays on the relationship between the Spirit’s activity in creation and reconciliation, he lamented the reduction of the Spirit’s work to soteriology alone in Western theology from the third century until the Reformation.54 Though Luther and Calvin both reemphasized the Spirit’s role in creation, Protestant theology later fell back to a “predominantly soteriological conception of the work of the Spirit.”55 Following the reappropriation of the Spirit by idealist thinkers such as Hegel, Feuerbach seized upon the association of the Spirit and the mind to argue that God was only an “absolutizing self-projection of the human mind.” Pannenberg contends that in their reaction against Idealism’s separating of the divine and human spirit, Christian theologians were left with no function for the Spirit save an extremely subjective “pretended legitimation for the acceptance of otherwise unintelligible statements of faith . . . a subjectivism of an irrational

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For discussion and critique of Pannenberg’s engagement with the sciences see Ted Peters’s introduction in Peters, ed., Toward a Theology of Nature, pp. 1–14; Leron F. Shults, “Theology, Science, and Relationality: Interdisciplinary Reciprocity in the Work of Wolfhart Pannenberg,” Zygon 36, no. 4 (2001), pp. 809–25; Philip Hefner, “Pannenberg’s Fundamental Challenges to Theology and Science,” Zygon 36, no. 4 (2001), pp. 801–8; John Polkinghorne, “Field and Theology: A Response to Wolfhart Pannenberg,” Zygon 36, no. 4 (2001), pp. 795–7; Jacqui A. Stewart, Reconstructing Science and Theology in Postmodernity: Pannenberg, Ethics and the Human Sciences (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000); Stanley J. Grenz, “ ‘Scientific’ Theology/‘Theological’ Science: Pannenberg and the Dialogue Between Theology and Science,” Zygon 34, no. 1 (1999), pp. 159–66; John Polkinghorne, “Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Engagement with the Natural Sciences,” Zygon 34, no. 1 (1999), pp. 151–7; Colin E. Gunton, The Triune Creator: A Historical and Systematic Study (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998), pp. 161–2; Carol Rausch Albright and Joel Haugen, eds., Beginning with the End: God, Science and Wolfhart Pannenberg (Chicago: Open Court, 1997); Mark Worthing, God, Creation and Contemporary Physics (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), pp. 120–4; Hefner, “Role of Science,” pp. 135–51; Lindon Eaves, “Spirit, Method, and Content in Science and Religion,” Zygon 24, no. 2 (1989), pp. 185–216; John Robert Russell, “Contingency in Physics and Cosmology: A Critique of the Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg,” Zygon 23 (March 1988), pp. 3–21; J. Wicken, “Theology and Science in the Evolving Cosmos: A Need for Dialogue,” Zygon 23, no. 1 (1988), pp. 45–55. Pannenberg, “Doctrine of the Spirit,” p. 11. The same year Pannenberg would ask, “And has the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit not been misused and discredited because it has been used as a fig-leaf to protect the nakedness of the Christian tradition from the questionings of modern critical thinking?” (Pannenberg, Apostles’ Creed, p. 131. Cf. Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 2–4). Pannenberg, “Doctrine of the Spirit,” p. 12.

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decision of faith.”56 He flatly rejected this formulation and argued instead for beginning with the Spirit’s function in creation as the origin of all life.57 To develop such a doctrine, Pannenberg looks to Greek patristic theology and the Orthodox tradition, which has, according to him, preserved an emphasis on the Spirit’s role in God’s creative work as “providing the basis for the significance of his soteriological presence in the Church and in Christian experience.”58 Essentially for Pannenberg, the life-giving work of the Spirit in reconciliation is the same kind of action seen in creation: “The dynamics of reconciliation are not something secondary to the creative activity of God, but unconditional, creative, and reconciling love characterizes the activity of the creator himself.”59 In fact, Pannenberg argues that the doctrine of creation should encompass the entire process of the divine economy because it is only in the eschaton that God’s work of creation will be complete.60 Thus, the creative activity of the Spirit forms the basic framework from which to understand the life-giving function of the Spirit in actualizing reconciliation. The two are the same type of activity originating in the same divine person of the Spirit. The Spirit who is the creative origin of all life is the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead, completes reconciliation, and will raise those in Christ at the end of time.61 Toward unpacking the relationship between the Spirit’s work in creation and his work of completing reconciliation, I will proceed by drawing out four constitutive aspects of Pannenberg’s view. First, I will study the role Pannenberg affords the Spirit in relation to that of the Father and the Son in creation. Second, this leads naturally to Pannenberg’s view of the Spirit’s being as the origin of all life, whose creative activity can, in turn, be understood as a field of force. Third, working from the connections Pannenberg draws between field theory and the biblical notion of the Spirit, I will delineate Pannenberg’s conception of creation from the future. This proceeds into a final discussion of contingency and human freedom. It must be kept in mind 56 57

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Pannenberg, “Doctrine of the Spirit,” p. 12. Pannenberg, “Doctrine of the Spirit,” p. 13. Similarly, “The spirit . . . of this new spiritual presence that is a life in the community of faith, is no other spirit than the spirit that animates and quickens all life” (p. 21). During the same period, Pannenberg, Apostles’ Creed, pp. 133–4; Pannenberg, JGM, pp. 170–1. Pannenberg, “Doctrine of the Spirit,” p. 11. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Future and Unity,” in Hope and the Future (ed. Ewert H. Cousins; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972), p. 63. Pannenberg, IST, p. 12. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 315. Even in ST1, Pannenberg hints toward the intimate connection he later forms between creative and reconciling work of the Spirit: “The inescapability of God’s presence by his Spirit means that God is present even with those who turn from him. . . . In God’s hiddenness, God’s deliverance may already by on the way for the creatures (Isa. 45:15)” (p. 414).

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that this entire discussion serves the intention of drawing out the synthetic relationships decisive for comprehending Pannenberg’s account of the Spirit’s activity and faith’s assent to revelation.

2.1. The Work of Creation and the Spirit of Fellowship Pannenberg’s trinitarian doctrine of creation sets out the role of the Father, Son, and the Spirit, who act together but in distinction: “With the creation of a world all the persons, acting together, move out of what they have together, namely, the divine essence.”62 As we saw in Section 1.1, “The Spirit and the Trinity,” Pannenberg’s fundamental moves relative to the doctrine of the Trinity are conditioned by his relational doctrine of the Trinity, in which each of the three persons depend reciprocally on one another and are known in their self-distinction from one another. Working against what he sees as an overemphasis on the deity of the Father to the detriment of the Son and the Spirit, he works in his program to more clearly emphasize the distinct roles of the Son and the Spirit in creation while still giving prominence to the Father.63 Related to the Father, the work of creation is his work especially “as the origin of creatures in their contingency by granting them existence, caring for them, and making possible their continued life and independence.”64 Pannenberg’s choice to emphasize the creative action of the Father as the demonstration of his love and care is intended to direct our attention back into the triune life and see there the eternal love of the Father for the Son, which precedes the Father’s creative work. The Son is the primary object of the Father’s love, but in the Father’s fashioning of the universe, Pannenberg writes: The love of the Father is directed not merely to the Son but also to each of his creatures. But the turning of the Father to each of his creatures in its distinctiveness is always mediated through the Son. The Father’s love for his creatures is not in competition with the love with which from all eternity he loves the Son. The creatures are objects of the Father’s love as they are drawn into his eternal turning to the Son.65 Similarly, “The Father wills and accepts [creatures] as an expression of the overflowing of the divine love with which the Father loves the Son.”66 62 63

64 65 66

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 5. Pannenberg does not deny the initiative of the Father in creation. Quite the contrary, he asserts that the Father is the creator of the world “not the Son, for the only context of the world of the Son is to serve the Father and to bring in his kingdom. The Father thus acts as Creator through the Son” (ST2, pp. 29–30). Pannenberg, ST2, p. 21. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 21. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 87.

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The Father’s “turning to the world of creatures is mediated through the Son and they in turn are objects of the Father’s love as they are drawn into his eternal love for the Son.”67 Creation is thus defined as the work of the Father’s loving initiative toward creatures through the Son. Just as the Christ-event was, for Pannenberg, a cooperative work between the Son and the Spirit that described their action as both in unity but also in diversity, so his account of creation does the same. The Son and the Spirit act together, but their actions must be seen as a unity in diversity so that the work of the Spirit is not subsumed under the work of the Son (the problem Pannenberg found in Barth’s portrayal, which we noted in the introduction to this chapter). The Son, for his part, forms the basis of the independent existence of creation in his “free self-distinction” from the Father.68 The Son is the “generative principle of otherness.”69 Pannenberg explains: The eternal Son is the ontic basis of the human existence of Jesus in his relation to God as Father. But if from all eternity, and thus also in the creation of the world, the Father is not without the Son, the eternal Son is not merely the ontic basis of the existence of Jesus in his selfdistinction from the Father as the one God; he is also the basis of the distinction and independent existence of all creaturely reality.70 It is important for our present study that, for Pannenberg, neither the creative action of the Father nor the Son can be understood without the work of the Spirit. Under no compulsion from the Father, the Son moves out of the divine unity by letting the Father alone be the one God but remains “one with the will of the Father” because the “fellowship of the Spirit unites the two.”71 Pannenberg continues: Thus creation is a free act of God as an expression of the freedom of the Son in his self-distinction from the Father, and of the freedom of the fatherly goodness that in the Son accepts the possibility and the existence of a creation distinct from himself, and of the freedom of the Spirit who links the two in free agreement.72 Just as the Spirit functions from all eternity relative to the Father and Son within the fellowship of the triune life, so the Spirit’s creative and reconciling functions within God’s economy are not only related to the Father and the Son 67 68 69 70 71 72

Mostert, God and the Future, p. 169. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 32. Also, pp. 84, 109. Pannenberg, IST, p. 42. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 23. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 30. Emphasis mine. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 30. Emphasis mine.

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but are also directly constituted by his relationship to them. Thus, the same emphasis on the Spirit that Pannenberg sought in his account of reconciliation is mirrored in his doctrine of creation.

2.2. Spirit, Wind, and Field Pannenberg relates this conclusion, that creatures in their plurality are the work of the Son, to a second closely related one: the Spirit is the “life-giving principle” for all creatures.73 Working from exegetical conclusions drawn from several Old Testament passages (Gen. 2.7; Job 33.4; Ps. 104.30) in tandem with several New Testament passages on the resurrection (Rom. 8.11; 1 Cor. 15.44ff.), Pannenberg contends that the Spirit is the life-giving principle of all life “to which all creatures owe life, movement, and activity.”74 Paul’s statements that the resurrection of Jesus from the dead was a work of the Spirit should compel theologians to consider a deeper meaning within the Old Testament teaching that the “breath of all people is in the hands of the Lord” (Job 12.10). While this may appear hard to reconcile with modern science, he argues that a deeper meaning should be found in the biblical language. Rejecting Platonic notions that relate spirit to divine intellect or “mind” (nous), Pannenberg favors what he considers the more biblical meaning of spirit as “wind” or “breath” (pneuma). He finds this more in keeping with the Hebrew understanding of the spirit (ruah). Thus, all life is connected to the work of the Spirit. In the second creation account God “breathed into [man’s] nostrils the breath of life and man became a living being” (Gen. 2.7), and scripture records that when life perishes “God withdraws his Spirit” (Job 34.14f.; Ps. 104.29).”75 Pannenberg had formulated the Spirit’s work in these terms as early as 1967 in his sermon “Gott ist Geist,” saying, “God as Spirit is the miraculous depth of life from whom all life emerges. So the ‘Spirit’ in the Old Testament is the creative origin of life. He is the breath of God.”76 This was and continues to be central for the connection he forms between the Spirit’s work in creation and reconciliation.

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Pannenberg, IST, p. 43. Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 76–7. Similarly, Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Working of the Spirit in the Creation and in the People of God,” in Spirit, Faith, and Church (ed. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Avery Dulles, and Carl Braaten; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970), pp. 14–18; Pannenberg, “God as Spirit,” p. 786. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 77. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Gott is Geist (1967),” in Gegenwart Gottes: Predigten (Munich: Claudius, 1975): “Gott als Geist ist die wunderbare Tiefe des Lebens, aus der alles Leben hervorgeht. So ist im Alten Testament der ‘Geist’ der schöpferische Ursprung des Lebens. Es ist der Atem Gottes” (p. 106).

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This conclusion—the Spirit not as mind or intellect but as breath or wind— led Pannenberg to look for a better way to understand God as Spirit.77 Drawing from Max Jammer, the historian of scientific terminology who contends that the Stoic idea of spirit (pneuma) was historically the predecessor of the notion of field in modern physics, Pannenberg argues that we do better justice to the biblical teaching of the Spirit if we “relate the field theories of modern physics to the Christian doctrine of the dynamic work of the divine Spirit in creation.”78 He contends that a closer relation exists between the doctrine of the divine pneuma and modern field theories than between the doctrine of the divine pneuma and the Aristotelian theory of motion. The renewing of the thought of the primacy of force in Leibniz (with Newton as a precursor) and the development of field theories in physics have made it possible again to relate the function of the divine Spirit in the creation of the world to the way in which physics describes nature. We may refer especially to the concept of all material, bodily phenomena as manifestations of force fields and finally of the one cosmic force field that Faraday had in view.79 Pannenberg is cautious not to equate the work of the Spirit directly with field theories. Field theories “can be seen only as approximations to the reality that is also the subject of theological statements about creation,” and one will in fact find differences between scientific and theological appropriations of the concept.80 Still, he finds field theory to be an illuminating 77

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Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Theological Appropriation of Scientific Understandings: Response to Hefner, Wicken, Eaves, and Tipler,” Zygon 24, no. 2 (1989), pp. 255–71, esp. p. 257. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 82. More recently: Pannenberg, “God as Spirit,” pp. 787–92; Pannenberg, “Faith in God the Creator and Scientific Cosmology,” pp. 461–2. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 82. Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 83–4. Similarly, Pannenberg, “God as Spirit,” pp. 787–8. Pannenberg’s use of field theories is consistently metaphorical. On Pannenberg’s terms, field theory is an “approximation” and a potentially illuminating concept through which theology might speak about or signify the being and activity of the triune God in relation to the world of creation (see Pannenberg, IST, p. 47; Charles Gutenson, Reconsidering the Doctrine of God (London: T&T Clark, 2005), pp. 196–200; Polkinghorne, “Field and Theology: A Response to Wolfhart Pannenberg,” p. 797). This explanation accords with Pannenberg’s methodological description regarding the secular sciences. Theology takes “secular descriptions as provisional versions of reality which imply a further dimension, the dimension of reality as constituted by the presence of God” (Pannenberg, “Theological Appropriation of Scientific Understandings,” p. 259). Later (2001), he describes the appropriation of field theories as “offer[ing] the theologian a conceptual help” and, while field theory is more than a “vague analogy, either in science or theology,” it remains a metaphor in both arenas of study (Pannenberg,

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way of signifying how God is active in the particularities of his creation; “Insofar as the field concept corresponds to the older doctrines [of creation] it is not a mistake, but does justice to the history and concept of spirit, if we relate the field theories of modern physics to the Christian doctrine of the dynamic work of the divine spirit in creation.”81 By transferring the field concept to theology as a model for describing divine action, Pannenberg believes he is better able to account for the reality of contingency in physical process, that all creation is not only dependent on God but also open to new occurrences in that dependence. The field concept is transformed by the “framework of eschatology and the concomitant idea of the future shaping the present,” but he argues that “this temporal reinterpretation of the field concept allows us to conceive of contingency as a manifestation of such a field.”82 As Hefner explains it, field theory describes action differently than a billiard-ball model in which bodies impact another then another, and so on. In a field, “action is not described by the relationships of separate bodies to each other but by how those relationships between bodies emerge from the coexistence that derives from their being together in a field.”83 As this relates to the origination and operation of “causes,” on this account, “causes do not originate in entities nor do they operate only on individuals; rather, factors in the field which is the ambience of the entity can be causes, and they work on the entire ambience.”84 In other words, according to this conception we might describe the Spirit as a type of “allencompassing field,” in which creatures as “subsequent fields” are nested.85 Pannenberg’s employment of field theories does not, contrary to some critiques,

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“God as Spirit,” pp. 787–8). This is consistent as well with his description of the relationship between theology and science as “consonance” (Pannenberg, “Theology of Creation,” p. 7). When Pannenberg appears to move beyond metaphorical usage (Pannenberg, “Faith in God the Creator and Scientific Cosmology,” p. 461; also p. 462), he does so based on the desire that scientific “models” not be underestimated for their potential to make accurate truth claims (Pannenberg, “Theological Appropriation of Scientific Understandings,” p. 262). Further, we consider below (Chapter 4) Pannenberg’s use of concepts provided by the natural sciences, philosophy, and anthropology according to Shults’s contention that a bipolar, reciprocal relationship exists between “fundamental-theological” and the “systematic-theological” claims. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 82. Pannenberg, “Theological Appropriation of Scientific Understandings,” p. 256. Hefner, “Pannenberg’s Fundamental Challenges,” p. 804; Similarly, “The impasse caused by mechanistic determinism could be overcome only by a conception of natural force that no longer considered forces in terms of the impact of bodies on other bodies” (Pannenberg, “Contributions from Systematic Theology,” p. 368). Hefner, “Role of Science,” p. 140. Joshua M. Moritz, “Natures, Human Nature, Genes and Souls: Reclaiming Theological Anthropology through Biological Structuralism,” Dialog 46, no. 3 (2007), p. 276.

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entail an implicit panentheism in which the human spirit is collapsed into or absorbed by the divine Spirit.86 86

John Cooper charges Pannenberg with an “implicit panentheism” (despite Pannenberg’s repeated rejection of it [Pannenberg, IST, p. 45]), and in doing so fails to read Pannenberg’s account on its own terms and without attending to the synthetic connections in ST (John W. Cooper, Panentheism: The Other God of the Philosophers [Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006]). While recognizing Pannenberg’s denial that creatures affect God or codetermine the course of history, what Cooper calls “typical contemporary panentheism,” he argues that Pannenberg’s use of the field concept “undermine[s] or breach[es] the God-world difference at a basic level” by “identifying the cosmic field with the Spirit of God instead of viewing it as a creation of God” (p. 281). According to Pannenberg’s method of internal coherence, one might respond to Cooper’s charge by pointing to those moments in Pannenberg’s work when he emphatically argues for the God-world distinction on an ontological level, the principle aspect of Pannenberg’s thought most problematic for Cooper. We could note at least four distinct categories in which such moments arise: (1) Concerning the Spirit of God and human creatures: “The working of the Spirit in living creatures does not mean that he is a constituent part of the creature” (ST2, p. 186); “Against pantheism, theology always insists on the specific nature of the divine as distinct from all finite reality. But the finite realities of physical fields can be imagined as constituted by the presence of the divine spirit, as forms of its creative manifestation” (Pannenberg, “Theological Appropriation of Scientific Understandings,” p. 258). (2) Concerning God’s omnipresence and eternity: “If the divine eternity in the sense of simultaneous presence and possession of the wholeness of life is understood as eternity of the trinitarian God, whose identity allows for differentiation and selfdifferentiation, then it also allows for a world of creatures that are different from God as well as from one another and yet exist in the orbit of God’s omnipresence and are destined to participate finally in God’s eternity without losing their finite nature and identity in difference from their Creator” (Pannenberg, “Eternity, Time, and Space,” Zygon 40, no. 1 [2005], p. 103). (3) Concerning the nature of human fellowship with God: “The stages of the evolution of life may be seen as the stages of increasing complexity and intensity and therefore in a growing participation of the creatures in God—an ecstatic participation, of course, that is possible only in the medium of life’s going out of itself if there is to be no violation of the distinction between God and creature. . . . At no stage does this growing participation in the Spirit eliminate distinction from God (ST2, pp. 33–4. Emphasis mine). (4) Concerning his use of the categories “part” and “whole”: In distinction from Hegel’s view, “Whatever is a part of the whole—a part alongside other parts in distinction to the whole is for that reason finite . . . and thus cannot be God” (Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Categories of ‘Part’ and ‘Whole,’ ” Journal of Religion 66, no. 4 [1986], pp. 378, 385). I suspect that Cooper’s worries are representative for others who find the relationship Pannenberg forms between creation and God’s interior life too similar to classical panentheism (see Hefner, “Pannenberg’s Fundamental Challenges,” p. 806). Whether

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In keeping with this kind of field conception of action and causes, Pannenberg describes the finite events that take place within the field of God’s presence as “special manifestations of that field” and their movements are “responsive to its forces”; they are contingent, dependent, and not self-sustaining.87 Thus, he utilizes the scientific field concept as a way to account for the biblical reality that all things are rooted in God and dependent on him for their existence. In addition, and especially relevant for our study, Pannenberg believes these concepts allow him to account for God’s action nondeterministically. “If theological adoption of the field concept is admitted,” Pannenberg explains, it can help to make understandable how the activity of the Creator in his creation can coexist with the proper activities of the creatures themselves. The key presupposition here is that field effects can be superimposed upon one another. Specific fields can be regarded as manifestations of more comprehensive fields. There is no competition, then, between the creator Spirit of God and created agencies. Rather, as the omnipresence of God permeates all the space of the creatures, so God’s Spirit permeates all natural forces and the life of the creatures, and thereby empowers them in their own activities.88 Events and the agency of creatures are, thus, “responsive” to the Spirit of God as “field” but not caused by the field itself. These conclusions concerning the Spirit, field theory, and contingency have far-reaching affects on Pannenberg’s understanding of the Spirit’s activity in the world, specifically the completion of reconciliation and the patterns of encounter between divine and human action in this event. We look now at how Pannenberg’s commitments to field theory correlate with his account of God’s immensity and eternity to form a view of creation from the future.

2.3. Creation from the Future As an eternal act God’s creative action embraces the whole cosmic process and permeates all phases of the divine action and its history.89 It is certainly possible to speak of a “purpose” of God in creating the universe with reference to the creation of human beings and to their final redemption in the eschatological future. . . . Still the language of “purpose” easily suggests a false anthropomorphism in our language

87 88 89

one agrees or disagrees with Cooper’s assessment will, I believe, depend largely on the degree to which the reader allows Pannenberg’s repeated rejections of panentheism to carry weight, not only the spoken disavowals but those inherent to his material content. Pannenberg, IST, p. 46. Pannenberg, “Contributions from Systematic Theology,” p. 369. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 41.

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about God, because it suggests a position of the creator to the beginning of the universe as if looking ahead to a distant future and selecting means for achieving some purpose.90 Pannenberg goes on to say that speaking about divine “purpose” makes proper sense only with regard to the fact that the divine act of creation relates to the universe “as a whole and therefore includes its final future as well as its beginning.” We have seen that Pannenberg’s view of divine action in ST is wedded to his view of eternity and time,91 and we will push deeper into that conception here to see its impact on his view of the Spirit’s activity in creation and reconciliation. By formulating an account of the Spirit’s work in terms of a “possibility field” which works from the future of God’s eternity, he believes he has more adequately ensured both a robust view of the created order’s dependency on God (contingency) and strengthened a nondeterministic account of the Spirit’s work. According to Pannenberg, eternity should not be confused with timelessness; rather, eternity is “omnitemporal.” Eternity “comprehends the wholeness of life, not in the sense of an everlasting process, but rather as the continuous presence of the whole of time.”92 God transcends time in his eternity but is still “present and becomes present in the temporal reality of his creatures.”93 When this concept of eternity is applied to the doctrine of God, it integrates both God’s transcendence and immanence to creation under the attribute of his omnipresence. Pannenberg explains: The concept of eternity as simultaneous possession of the fullness of life that is otherwise divined in the sequence of events also comprises the participation of the eternal God in the history of his creation, the divine economy that is finally to be consummated in the eschatological participation of creation in God’s own eternal life.94 The future of God then, “which is identical with his eternal present,” is the creative source of creatures’ existence.95 For Pannenberg, because the unity 90 91 92

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Pannenberg, “God as Spirit,” p. 785. See Chapter 1, Section 3.2, pp. 47–57. Pannenberg, “Eternity, Time, and Space,” p. 102. Emphasis mine. On Pannenberg’s view of time and eternity, see Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 401–9; Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 94–5; Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 247, 600–2; Pannenberg, What is Man? pp. 74–6. Also Ted Peters, “The Terror of Time,” Dialog 39, no. 1 (2000), p. 65; John Robert Russell, “Time in Eternity: Special Relativity & Eschatology,” Dialog 39, no. 1 (2000), pp. 46–55. Pannenberg, “God as Spirit,” p. 788. Pannenberg draws heavily on Plotinus on this point. Pannenberg, “Eternity, Time, and Space,” p. 102; Pannenberg, “God as Spirit,” pp. 788–90. Pannenberg, “Eternity, Time, and Space,” p. 103.

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of the divine creative act is eternal, it “precedes time” and originates (from the perspective of finite creatures) not from the past but from the future— the “mode” of time closest to eternity.96 All these works—God’s action in preserving and ruling his creatures, and also of bringing forth new things and God’s reconciling and consummating of the world that he has created—participate in the quality of his action at the creation of the world. As an eternal act God’s creative action embraces the whole cosmic process and permeates all phases of the divine action in history.97 In this way, God is both transcendent to creation and immanent in the world of his creation by his Spirit, who acts on and in creation as a field of force. Because the Spirit acts in ways akin to a field of force, however, his actions are not deterministic; they are not, as noted earlier, like billiard balls knocking against one another. We might summarize with the following: Unlike God, creatures are given space and time as dimensions of their existence “within the undivided space of God’s omnipresence and in the presence of his eternity.”98 Creatureliness and its attending destiny for fellowship with God, on Pannenberg’s account, entail the duration of time and the limitations of space in which creatures experience a degree of independent existence from their Creator. The timefullness and spaciousness of God’s existence are limited by neither. Pannenberg’s explication of God’s electing activity, specifically the relationship between election and calling, is illustrative of his view of eternity as the “whole of time.” The divine work of calling takes place in the course of time as the “temporal realization” of God’s eternal election.99 For Pannenberg, it will only be when the “totality of temporal occurrence” is brought about with the entry of eternity into time through the coming of the kingdom of God that the eternal counsel of God will be realized.100 Thus, for Pannenberg, because God’s electing counsel extends to all people from his eternity, the number of the elect is left open through the course of time. A doctrine of election that operates according to this conception of eternity is far more acceptable to Pannenberg than those in which God’s election is depicted at 96

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Pannenberg, ST2, p. 145; Pannenberg, ST1, p. 390. Pannenberg had argued the same much earlier: Pannenberg, “Analogy and Doxology (1963),” p. 237. For a more recent version of the same argument see Ted Peters, Science, Theology, and Ethics (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), esp. pp. 79–96. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 41. Pannenberg, “God as Spirit,” p. 791; Similarly, Pannenberg, “Eternity, Time, and Space,” p. 105. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 449. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 449.

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the beginning of time—and therefore deterministically. Pannenberg finds justification for this in Rom. 8.28–29, 1 Cor. 15.49, and Eph. 1.10, saying: Here again the “we” of believers as God’s recipients of election cannot have an exclusive sense. Its setting is within the divine place of salvation and its actualization in the process of history (cf. Rom. 11:25–32). Individual believers are certainly objects of the divine election and of calling by the message of the gospel. But they are not so in isolation; they participate in the eternal election of God by the historical event of calling to faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ.101 Pannenberg’s use of field theories toward theological, dogmatic ends illustrates his awareness of their limitation for Christian theology. One such limitation is their ability only to function as “approximations” of created reality.102 A second and more important limitation arises in light of Pannenberg’s ontology of the future. While field theories in physics work in terms of natural laws, Christian theology talks of the Spirit as the “power of the future.”103 In the Spirit’s action “the future of the consummation of the kingdom of God predominates.”104 When field concepts are applied to the Spirit in this way they are now being used differently than in classical electrodynamics and gravitational theory.105 Pannenberg explains how his view of eternity builds toward his use of field theory. Only from the point of view of a finite being is the past lost and the future not yet arrived, while God in his eternity is his own future as well as the world’s and whatever is past is kept in his presence. Thus, God’s immensity and eternity can be regarded as constitutive of time and space, and consequently it makes sense to speak of a field of God’s spiritual presence in his creation.106 Thus, on Pannenberg’s view, the Spirit is the power of God’s eternity, finite reality’s future that functions in created reality as a “field of creative presence” that “releases event after event into finite existence.”107

101 102 103 104 105

106 107

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 450. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 83. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 98. Emphasis mine. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 109. Pannenberg argues that this should not make their use illegitimate if the reshaping is deliberate. Pannenberg, “Theological Appropriation of Scientific Understandings,” p. 256. Pannenberg, IST, pp. 48–9. Pannenberg, IST, p. 49.

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In turn, space and time are aspects of the Spirit’s working.108 Within created space and time, creatures move constantly toward a future that, for them, has “an ambivalent face.”109 Its face is ambivalent because the future holds a sense both of promise and fulfillment as well as the threat of the end of their existence, “to end and dissolve their independent form.”110 Though the future may hold both promise and threat for creatures, the Spirit expresses himself in the future as the “field of the possible” and thus “the basis of the openness of creation to a higher consummation and the source of what is new, i.e., of contingency in each new event.”111 In the Spirit’s working from the future, God’s eternity actually finds entry into time and brings with it the “unity of life” that can only be experienced partially in the sequence of moments that characterizes our present existence but will achieve final actualization in the eschaton.112 As the creative source of creaturely existence, the Spirit’s work serves to give creatures a share income from the corruption of their independence. It is worth quoting Pannenberg at length on this point. The emergence of contingent individual events from the possibility field of the future constitutes, then, only the elementary aspect in the creative dynamic of the Spirit, the beginning of its development. It culminates in the integration of events and moments into a unity of form. Within worldly time it appears as a time-bridging present in the duration of forms. In this duration of creaturely forms, which also bring them together in space, we have a kind of inkling of eternity. The goal of the Spirit’s dynamic is to give creaturely forms duration by a share in eternity and to protect them against the tendency to disintegrate that follows from their independence.113 Pannenberg believes just such an account of creation from the future more adequately ensures a robust appreciation of contingency and human freedom than more traditional views that locate the origin of creation in 108 109 110

111

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Mostert, God and the Future, p. 171. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 96. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 96. One example of this threat of dissolution is seen in the processes of entropy in the natural world: “All forms of energy are continually and irreversibly transformed into heat, and a feature of all cosmic processes is thus the breaking down of differences between them” (Pannenberg, ST2, p. 97). Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 97–8. Similarly, “With the eschatological future God’s eternity comes into time and it is thus creatively present to all temporal things that precede this future. Yet God’s future is still the creative origin of all things in the contingency of their existence even as it is also the final horizon of the definitive meaning and therefore of the nature of all things and all events” (Pannenberg, ST3, p. 531. Emphasis mine). Pannenberg, ST2, p. 102. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 102. Emphasis mine.

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the past. Views that ground the future of creation in its beginning and those which trade heavily on divine foreknowledge are unsatisfactory on Pannenberg’s evaluation because they lead to a binding determinism in which “all following events” are subjected to “an ineluctable necessity either of natural causes or of divine foreknowledge. If all creaturely conduct is fixed by the past, there can be no true contingency or creaturely freedom in the course of events. This does not have to be so if divine knowledge, as in Augustine, is thought to be eternally simultaneous with all times.”114 As we noted earlier in relation to election, Pannenberg works here as well to avoid the specter of determinism. With concerns about contingency in mind, Pannenberg finds continuous creation most conducive for the purposes of guarding both the source of novel events and creation’s dependency on God. “While the idea of creation in the first place denotes the origin of the creature,” he explains, “it also extends to its continuing existence, because the creature cannot exist of itself.”115 When God’s creative activity is marked out along the lines of continuous creation, Pannenberg believes that creation’s dependency on God is given clearer profile. Also, one finds in Pannenberg’s system an intimate link between creation and eschatology.116 The Spirit is the “eschatological reality, the power of creation’s consummation; thus not only the origin of all life but especially the origin of the new eschatological life. The Spirit’s life-giving work at creation is preparatory to the Spirit’s bringing forth of the new life of the eschaton.”117

2.4. Autonomy versus Dependence—The Spirit and Contingency By formulating an account of the Spirit’s work in terms of a possibility field which works from the future of God’s eternity, Pannenberg believes he more adequately ensures a robust view of the created order’s dependency on God, its contingency. A doctrine of creation should serve to demonstrate the dependence of the world on God, a God who not only creates but holds fast to his creation from beginning to consummation.118 Pannenberg believes the dependence of the created order on God is more apparent in a doctrine of creation that features a thesis of continuous creation. In God’s continuous creative activity, which is akin to preservation, the Spirit is the field of God’s 114 115

116 117 118

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 141. Emphasis mine. Pannenberg, IST, p. 40. Emphasis mine. Contra Dale Jackson, it does not seem that “continual rebirthing” is the best way of describing Pannenberg’s use of continuous creation (Jackson, “Creation and Reconciliation,” p. 52. Cf. Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 40–1). Pannenberg, ST3, p. 4. Similarly, Pannenberg, ST3, p. 19. Mostert, God and the Future, p. 171. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 20; Similarly, Pannenberg, IST, p. 37; Pannenberg, “Problems,” pp. 110–11; Pannenberg, “Contributions from Systematic Theology,” pp. 360–2.

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creative presence that pervades the created order and is active in all aspects of its formation. As Moritz puts it, “Each organic creature is contingent upon the Spirit-as-field for its form/soul as it emerges during embryological development, and each biological species is contingent upon the Spirit for its evolutionary future.”119 God is faithful to his creation, then, not only through the work of the Son and the Father in the Christ-event but has also been and persists to be through his continuous creative activity, on which the world continuously depends. Pannenberg’s account of creaturely contingence depends on his futurist ontology (and ultimately on his view of the God-world relation according to divine infinity).120 He is aware that this is a counterintuitive move that diverges from traditional Christian theology. Creatures may perceive the Spirit’s working as coming from the past; it may have this appearance to them, but Pannenberg insists that the Spirit actually encounters them from the future and in doing so embraces both their “origin and possible fulfillment.”121 The Spirit is the origin of their existence and also the power of God moving them toward the unity that will only be found in the completion of all history. As Pannenberg has emphasized before, he fears that formulations of divine action and causation from the past destroys adequate conceptions of human independence and freedom. Thus, theology can avoid “unacceptable, deterministic consequences” of God’s action by reformulating the doctrine of God on the basis of eschatology.122 This is what Pannenberg’s account attempts to do on several fronts. Some allege that Pannenberg’s futurist ontology is determinism dressed up in new clothes or even determinism in reverse.123 However, Pannenberg denies this, asserting early on that the doctrine of God must trade on a more robust notion of transcendence. God simply is not on the same level

119 120 121 122 123

Moritz, “Reclaiming Theological Anthropology,” p. 276. See above, Chapter 1, Section 3.2. “The Action of the ‘True Infinite.’ ” Pannenberg, ST2, p. 102. Pannenberg, “Providence, God and Eschatology,” p. 175. Some have criticized Pannenberg’s system for simply being, “Calvinism set in reverse gear,” a kind of backward determinism set from the future rather than the past (L. B. Gilkey, “Pannenberg’s Basic Questions in Theology: A Review Article,” Perspective 14 [1973], p. 53). Others have suggested that “if the eschatological rule of God has already been decided in Jesus’ resurrection,” that God will establish his kingdom on earth, then the future isn’t actually open and contingency is in fact only illusory (Philip Clayton, “Anticipation and Theological Method,” in The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg [ed. Carl Braaten and Philip Clayton; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1988], p. 131);similarly, McKenzie, “Pannenberg on God and Freedom,” pp. 307–29. More recently, Jonathan Case argues that Pannenberg’s emphasis on the priority of the future and the principle of retroactivity seems to make the truth of God’s deity “a pretty safe bet” (Case, “The Death of Jesus and the Truth of the Triune God in Wolfhart Pannenberg and Eberhard Jüngel,” p. 6).

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as “existent beings”; if he were, then freedom would indeed be impossible. Rather, [s]uch a being would also not be God, because it could not be the reality which determines everything, for the reality of freedom, of human subjectivity, would remain outside its grasp. Thus, the biblical idea of the omnipotence of God is in irreconcilable conflict with the understanding of God as an existent being. Theology should think of God rather as the origin of freedom, as the reality which makes possible the subjectivity of man.124 God is the origin of freedom and the power of the future, the “God whose kingdom is coming.”125 Mostert summarizes nicely: In [Pannenberg’s] view it makes an enormous difference whether past events determine some future outcome or whether the future is determinative of the present. For him there can only be a deterministic system if past events determine the future. If the future has power in some way to “determine” the present, a very different sense of “determine” must be applied. . . . The reality of human freedom is guaranteed by the divine “determination”; where there is truly a freedom to decide between possibilities there can be no possibility of a deterministic system.126 History is open, for Pannenberg, and real choices exist for creatures as given to them by God in their position as finite creatures in space and time. On his account, the Spirit is the power of the future, “working creatively in all events at both micro and macro level as a field of force. . . . The contingency of present events is not compromised by their coming into existence from a possibility field of future events.”127 Pannenberg reiterates, “With the eschatological future God’s eternity comes into time and it is thus creatively present to all the temporal things that preceded this future. Yet God’s future is still the creative origin of all things in the contingency of their existence.”128 124

125 126 127 128

Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Speaking about God in the Face of Atheistic Criticism,” in The Idea of God and Human Freedom (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973), pp. 109–10. Pannenberg, “Speaking about God,” p. 111. Mostert, God and the Future, p. 177. Mostert, God and the Future, p. 179. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 531. In addition to Pannenberg’s own repeated emphasis on the future as the creative origin of present events and the resulting contingency this generates, Mostert adds two additional reasons why Pannenberg’s system fails to be deterministic: (1) the future does not yet exist and cannot then be conceived as an “efficient cause” and (2) God rules not by naked power but by love (Mostert, God and the Future, pp. 179–82).

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Our discussion of the relationship between the Spirit’s work in creation and reconciliation concludes by addressing the second constitutive element of Pannenberg’s account: the logic of ecstasy. In this portion of our study, the preceding discussions related to field theory, eternity and time, and creation from the future will coalesce as we return to some of our original questions.

2.5. Life “Outside the Self”: Human Eccentricity and the Work of the Spirit Pannenberg’s presentation of the Spirit’s activity that lifts believers “outside the self” into the fellowship of Jesus with the Father is a sustained attempt to make the Spirit’s activity not alien but inherent to the human person; the Spirit does not work on the person from the outside, but from the inside.129 Consider the following comments, in which Pannenberg critiques the distinctions drawn by Origen between the Spirit of God and the human spirit and sides instead with Athanasius. In particular Origen denied that the Spirit works in inanimate creation. Indeed, he works in rational creatures only on their conversion to “what is better.” The imparting of the divine breath in Gen. 2:7 he construed as a gift, not for all but only for the saints (De princ. 1.3.6.), and the renewing of the face of the earth by the Spirit in Ps. 104:30 he construed as the founding of the new people of God. . . . In contrast Athanasius, on the basis of Ps. 32:6, stressed the cooperation of the Spirit as well as the Word in the creation of the world (Ad ser. 2.5; cf. 4.3). . . . The thesis that the Spirit is not severed from the Son (1.9; cf. 14.31) necessarily implies the Spirit’s participation in creation.130 Pannenberg explains that his account of the Spirit’s work is specifically an effort to move away from that of Origen by making the working of the Spirit of God not something alien to the individual but something inherent to their own being.131 The argument in Anthropology in Theological Perspective (hereafter, ATP) is much the same: “The divine spirit effects life of the creatures insofar as the latter goes out of itself ecstatically and

129 130 131

See Pannenberg, ST2, p. 186. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 271. Cf. Wolfgang Vondey: “Although Pannenberg rejects the identification of the human act of self-transcendence with an operation of the Holy Spirit, he does not clearly distinguish between the activity of the human spirit and God’s Spirit” (“The Holy Spirit and Time in Contemporary Catholic and Protestant Theology,” SJT 58, no. 4 [2005], p. 402).

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shares in the operation of the spirit in such a way that this spirit, despite its transcendence, is present at the very heart of the creature’s life.”132 In the following reference, from ST3, Pannenberg explicitly and clearly articulates the connection between the Spirit’s creative work and the ecstatic nature of being taken up by the Spirit that pervades his account, often implicitly. As I am arguing, this connection is the hinge upon which Pannenberg’s account of the Spirit’s work in reconciliation turns; it is how he affirms both the renewal of human independence and the agency of the Spirit in actualizing the work of reconciliation completed by the Father, Son, and Spirit in the crucifixion. As the Father raised the Crucified from the dead by the Spirit, so it is only the Spirit who in the light of the eschatological future of God teaches us to see him as the Messiah of the eschatological people of God. Because the Spirit, as Creator of a new life with no death, is himself an eschatological reality, he can also make manifest the eschatological significance of the coming and history of Jesus. This work of the Spirit takes place in full and continuous connection with his work in the world of nature as the origin of all life, and especially in humans as the source of the spontaneity of their “spiritual” activities that lift them ecstatically above their own particularity and thus enable them to grasp that which is beyond themselves and distinct from their own existence. In just the same way the Spirit effects in us the spontaneous recognition of Jesus as the Son of God that leads to faith in him as the Messiah of God’s people.133 Pannenberg’s assertion here takes clearer shape when seen against the backdrop of his previous anthropological work. By intimately linking the activity of the Spirit in creation to the actualization of the human person, Pannenberg draws upon anthropological proposals he made much earlier. One of the key terms in his first piece on anthropology, What is Man? (1962), was “openness to the world” (Weltoffenheit), and it reappears in ATP and ST as “exocentricity.”134 It also surfaced in the Walter and Mary Tuohy Chair Lectures he gave in Chicago in 1969, later compiled in Spirit, Faith and Church.135 There he argues that ecstasy is intrinsic to life, most specifically human life, and it is exhibited in the experience of “living beyond 132 133

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Pannenberg, ATP, p. 529. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 17; similarly, Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Insight and Faith,” in Basic Questions in Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress; reprint, “Einsicht und Glaube. Antwort an Paul Althaus,” TLZ 88 [1963], pp. 81–92), pp. 34–45, esp. p. 42. Ted Peters, “The Systematic Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg,” Dialog 37, no. 2 (1998), p. 129. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Avery Dulles, and Carl Braaten, Spirit, Faith, and the Church (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970).

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[one]self.”136 Pannenberg continues by drawing an intimate connection between the divine Spirit and the human spirit. The element of transcendence in spirit suggests that after all it might be neither necessary nor wise to admit a fundamental distinction between a human spirit and a divine spirit. The ecstatic, self-transcendent character of all spiritual experience brings sufficiently to bear the transcendence of God over against all created beings. The Spirit never belongs in a strict sense to the creature in his immanent nature, but the creature participates in the spirit—and I venture to say: in the divine spirit—by transcending itself, i.e. by being elevated beyond itself in the ecstatic experience that illustrates the working of the spirit. . . . Thus the idea of spirit allows us to do justice to the transcendence of God and at the same time to explain his immanence in his creation.137 Later, in “The Doctrine of the Spirit and the Task of a Theology of Nature,” Pannenberg works from the assertion that human life is “essentially ecstatic” in order to argue for the relationship between “ecological self-transcendence” and the “biblical idea of a spiritual origin of life.”138 Pannenberg is careful even in these early discussions not to conflate the two, saying, “The spirit never belongs in a strict sense to the creature in his immanent nature, but the creature participates in spirit—and I venture to say: in the divine spirit—by transcending itself.”139 Human creatures are differentiated from inorganic life precisely because of their capacity for “self-transcendence,” which in turn relates human creatures in this capacity to the Spirit of God, who creates and animates all life. Human creatures are then those who are “creative and receptive of the spiritual reality that raises [them] beyond [themselves],” the “power that raises our hearts, the power of the spirit.”140 Human “participation in the spiritual power beyond himself” is most readily seen, argues Pannenberg, in instances of creative design, artistic expression, or the discovery of truth.141 136 137 138

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Pannenberg, “Working of the Spirit,” p. 18. Pannenberg, “Working of the Spirit,” p. 21. Pannenberg, “Doctrine of the Spirit,” p. 17. On Pannenberg’s concept of selftranscendence see Kam Ming Wong, Wolfhart Pannenberg on Human Destiny (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008), pp. 59–90; Godfrey Igwebuike Onah, Self-Transcendence and Human History in Wolfhart Pannenberg (Lanham: University Press of America, 1999), esp. pp. 1–47, 89–139; Robert Potter, “Self-Transcendence: The Human Spirit and the Holy Spirit,” in Beginning with the End: God, Science, and Wolfhart Pannenberg (ed. Carol Rausch Albright and Joel Haugen; Chicago: Open Court, 1997), pp. 116–46. Pannenberg, “Working of the Spirit,” p. 99. Cf. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 186. Pannenberg, “Doctrine of the Spirit,” p. 20. Pannenberg, “Doctrine of the Spirit,” p. 20. Similarly, Pannenberg, Apostles’ Creed, pp. 135–6.

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In ST Pannenberg affirms the same saying, “Creaturely life has an eccentric character, that it is referred to the divine power of the Spirit that works upon it.”142 The creative activity of the Spirit is not relegated only to an original act of creation but is an ongoing work necessary for the continuation of life in time (what we referred to above as the Spirit’s presence in the sequence of forms). Finite creatures remain dependent on the Spirit for life throughout their existence. This element of contingency, or dependence on the Spirit in all living creatures, is constitutive of their “eccentric” character. It is worth quoting Pannenberg at length on this point, for here one sees a poignant example of his effort not to collapse or conflate the divine Spirit with the human spirit: The wind of the Spirit or the breath of God is something that the creature always needs. It does not control the blowing of the wind. If the wind stops, death follows. . . . The mortality of human life results from the fact that the Spirit of God is not always at work in it (Gen. 6:3). As “flesh,” we are perishable like all other living creatures. Conversely, as long as human life lasts, it is due to the continued activity of the breath of life that comes from the Spirit of God. The working of the Spirit in living creatures does not mean that he is a constituent part of the creature. Rather, it means that creaturely life has an eccentric character, that it is referred to the divine power of the Spirit that works upon it. Living creatures have the breath of life in them, but it is not at their disposal. God is always the Lord of creaturely life.143 The Spirit of God then is not the power of the human soul or a constituent part of it but the “power of God that generates and sustains the life of both soul and body and is thus at work in it.”144 To summarize, Pannenberg envisions the kind of intimate connection between the human spirit and the Spirit of God that makes the Spirit’s work in actualizing reconciliation not something that happens to human individuals from the outside but occurs from the inside. Another way of framing Pannenberg’s conception might be to say that he develops an account of the human spirit in which the human spirit has both immanent and transcendent qualities. He carefully distinguishes between the activity of the Spirit in all creatures and the work of the Spirit in believers to whom he is given as a gift. He explains, “The Spirit is not given to all creatures, but operates in all of them by arousing their self-transcendent response which is the movement

142 143 144

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 186. Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 185–6. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 186.

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of life itself.”145 The Spirit is a “field of power that pervades all creation” in which each “finite event or being is to be considered as a special manifestation of that field, and their movements are responsive to its forces.”146 Pannenberg’s intentions should be clear at this point. He wants to delineate the Spirit’s activity so that human independence is preserved by marking out the relationship between the divine and human Spirit somewhat nontraditionally, one that draws on contemporary scientific field theories for elucidation and leverages counterintuitive notions of time. It is interesting that Pannenberg’s formulation in the dogmatics is actually quite consistent with Frank Tupper’s appraisal of his earlier theology at which time he was not making use of field theory. The human spirit is immanent, “granting personal identity and fulfillment to life,” as well as transcendent, “moving man beyond himself” as “the ecstatic unity which increasingly integrates life.”147 When applied to the completion of reconciliation, Pannenberg pulls together all the related arguments of field, time, and human eccentricity to argue that the completing of reconciliation in the individual is not something alien to their being but an activity that arises from the source of their life and ongoing existence—the Spirit of God. By drawing on field theories (something fairly recent in Pannenberg’s thought148), Pannenberg tries to conceive the Spirit’s work nondeterministically, not akin to bodies colliding with one another like billiard balls. Rather, he is attempting to find ways of talking about causation that are filled out by the biblical teaching of the Spirit, in order that causation might be understood less mechanistically and more dynamically.

3. The Spirit and the Proclaimed Gospel We have now set the backdrop for the following analysis of the relationship between Pannenberg’s pneumatology and his doctrine of revelation. In what follows, we apply Pannenberg’s conception of the Spirit’s relationship to and activity in creation to his proposals regarding the nature of the Gospel and the Spirit’s activity in the assent to divine revelation. Pannenberg’s claims concerning the Spirit’s “teaching” and “revealing” work should be interpreted according to his understanding of the Spirit and the Spirit’s relation to creation. We might consider the interpretation of Charles Gutenson as a way to transition into the following discussion. Gutenson finds Pannenberg formulating an account of the Spirit in ways similar to John Wesley’s prevenient grace. On Gutenson’s view, there exists 145 146 147 148

Pannenberg, IST, p. 46. Pannenberg, IST, p. 46. Tupper, The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg, p. 237. See Pannenberg, “Theological Appropriation of Scientific Understandings,” p. 256.

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a striking similarity between Pannenberg’s own claim that “no knowledge of God and no theology are conceivable that do not proceed from God and are not due to the working of the Spirit”149 and 1 Cor. 12.3: “Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus is accursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” Gutenson recognizes Pannenberg’s commitment to the involvement of the Holy Spirit in all aspects of human life; he is “pervasively present and active in all of creation.”150 In other words, “No act whatsoever occurs outside the presence of the Spirit.”151 Based on Pannenberg’s claim that knowledge of God is impossible outside of the Holy Spirit, Gutenson also argues that it “seems clear that Pannenberg does indeed have a strong sense of the epistemic role of the Holy Spirit, though admittedly he seldom puts the matter in these terms.”152 Gutenson’s observation is significant for the direction our study will take in the following section. Pannenberg puts great confidence in the power of human reason to read the revelatory significance of history straight off the events themselves. One might ask then, Why emphasize the necessity of the Spirit when reason alone is needed? For Gutenson, the implication for understanding Pannenberg’s more rationalistic approach to theology is that his “rationalism” is “grounded in the power of God’s Spirit to make God known to all humans. Pannenberg’s methodology provides a description of how he understands the outworking of human knowledge in light of the Holy Spirit’s epistemic role.”153 I find something similar to be the case below.

3.1. The “Universal Intelligibility” of Divine Revelation Even a very cursory trot through some of Pannenberg’s writings on the doctrine of revelation discloses a growing emphasis on the role of the Holy Spirit. It would be too much to say that one finds the Spirit completely absent in Pannenberg’s earlier thought, but in his responses to his critics the Spirit’s activity is more transparent. Few aspects of Pannenberg’s early theology have been as vehemently discussed and criticized as his view of revelation. Some of Pannenberg’s earliest theological contributions were efforts to reinterpret the doctrine of revelation as a corrective to the prevailing notions of his day. Against the views most prevalent at the time, those of Barth and Bultmann, Pannenberg contended for the historical content of revelation, that God’s revelation is contained within history itself. In opposition to “the loss of history in 149 150 151 152 153

Pannenberg, ST1, p. 2. Gutenson, Reconsidering the Doctrine of God, p. 52. Gutenson, Reconsidering the Doctrine of God, p. 53. Gutenson, Reconsidering the Doctrine of God, p. 53. Gutenson, Reconsidering the Doctrine of God, p. 54.

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kerygma theology” (Bultmann) on one hand and “the leap beyond history into the suprahistory of Heilsgeschichte theology” (Barth) on the other, Pannenberg fought for revelation’s historical content.154 As Ted Peters notes, “Eliminated from the divine-human equation according to the existentialist and neo-orthodox calculus was any medium of revelation distinct from God in Godself. Eliminated was human history as a medium of divine presence and action.”155 The appearance of the edited volume Revelation as History (Offenbarung Als Geschichte) in 1961 signaled Pannenberg’s arrival on the theological scene. In his contribution to the volume, “Dogmatic Theses on the Doctrine of Revelation,” he articulates seven theses that relate the linking of revelation and the eschaton to revelation’s indirect character in history. Put succinctly, “The revelation of God is the defined goal of the present events of history, and only after their occurrence is God’s deity perceived. Thus, placing revelation at the close of history is grounded in the indirectness of revelation.”156 In contrast to the neoorthodox and Bultmannian theologians of his day, Pannenberg and his colleagues argued that history provides not only the medium but also the content of God’s indirect, rather than direct, revelation. For Pannenberg, history “precedes faith and elicits faith as a response.”157 Prior to Revelation as History, however, Pannenberg hinted at the direction his proposal would take in at least two essays, “Wie wird Gott uns Offenbar” and “Jesu Geschichte und Unsere Geschichte,” later republished in Faith and Reality.158 Here Pannenberg argued that biblical prophecies announcing God’s future manifestation to all nations as the one, true God indicate that “no special ‘supernatural’ presuppositions are necessary in order to recognize the deity of Yahweh in the events announced.”159 The facts themselves “speak their own clear language, without need of any addition”; neither faith nor the illumination of the Spirit is necessary for the facts

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Carl Braaten, “The Current Controversy on Revelation: Pannenberg and His Critics,” Journal of Religion 45, no. 3 (1965), p. 234. For Pannenberg, Bultmann’s existentialist view of revelation robbed the Christ-event of its “particular historical basis” and “faith of its universal expectation” (Douglas M. Meeks, Origins of the Theology of Hope [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1974], p. 67). Peters, “The Systematic Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg,” p. 124. Pannenberg et al., Revelation as History, p. 131. Similarly, “Our thesis was . . . that according to the biblical writings, it is not the word of God that is considered to reveal God as he is, but the actions of God in history, though the divine word of promise and proclamation certainly contribute to that revelation” (Pannenberg, “Intellectual Pilgrimage,” p. 189). Peters, “The Systematic Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg,” p. 124. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Wie wird Gott uns Offenbar?,” Radius 4 (1960), pp. 3–10; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Jesu Geschichte und unsere Geschichte,” Radius 1 (1960), pp. 18–27. Pannenberg, Faith and Reality, p. 61.

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themselves to be revelatory.160 This is not saying the Spirit is absent, but he is not involved in such a way that some work must be added to the events themselves. He explains, “Even the experience of the Spirit is not an independent occurrence of revelation. No one has to wait for an experience of the Spirit in order to come to know God in Jesus.”161 In Revelation as History, Pannenberg more fully addressed the issues surrounding the Spirit’s relationship to revelation’s appraisal. When revelation is an occurrence that can only be perceived with “secret mediation,” when it is put “in contrast to, or even conflict with, natural knowledge,” Pannenberg worries that revelation becomes then a “gnostic knowledge of secrets.”162 Against Bultmann’s subjectivism, he argues, “What Jahweh accomplished in history cannot be written off as the imagination of the pious soul, for its inherent meaning of revealing the deity of Jahweh is impressed on everyone.”163 Because God’s revelation in history is available to all, the events themselves carry “transforming power,” and no additional work of the Spirit is necessary for them to be known as revelation.164 In other words, “When revelation happens in history, it does not require a special insight of faith or illumination by the Holy Spirit in order to be known. The revelation itself is objectively contained in the historical events themselves, regardless of one’s perspective, beliefs, or the angle brought to them. No work of the Holy Spirit or of faith is necessary to “enhance the revelatory content” of the historical facts themselves.165 One of the fundamental points of Pannenberg’s critics was the disjunction they found him making between the work of the Spirit and the appropriation of God’s revelation, that he “minimizes the role of the Holy Spirit in the epistemological process of grasping the revelation of God in history.”166 160

161 162

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Pannenberg, Faith and Reality, p. 62. Regarding the addition of faith, he later says, “Anyone who recognizes the deity, power and love of the God of Israel by the life-history of Jesus comes thereby to trust in him. . . . But the recognition cannot for them be a matter of a decision of faith, for that recognition is the group of their trust in God and in Jesus Christ” (p. 67). He describes Barth’s account as a “disastrous short-cut,” saying “An attempt has been made to find a sheltered area where faith would be independent of historical investigations” (p. 72). Pannenberg, Faith and Reality, p. 65. Pannenberg et al., Revelation as History, p. 135. Similarly, Pannenberg asserts, “The revelation of the biblical God is demonstrated before all eyes for the benefit of all people. It is not a secret knowledge available to the few” (p. 150). Pannenberg et al., Revelation as History, p. 136. Emphasis mine. Pannenberg et al., Revelation as History, p. 137. Pannenberg continues, “The special event is the event itself, not the attitude with which one confronts the event. A person does not bring faith with him to the event as though faith were the basis for finding the revelation of God in the history of Israel and of Jesus Christ. Rather, it is through an open appropriation of these events that true faith is sparked” (p. 137). Braaten, “The Current Controversy on Revelation,” p. 229. Grenz, Reason for Hope, p. 52.

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Carl Braaten is a representative example. Braaten, likening the history of German theology to a “drunken sailor reeling from side to side,” finds Pannenberg going too far in his reaction to Bultmann by creating an “extreme ratiocination objectifying certification of the ground and content of faith.”167 Like Braaten, Paul Althaus cannot accept the role Pannenberg appropriates for faith and argues instead that Jesus’ history as revelation is only accessible by faith.168 Although I believe Pannenberg’s prior writings on the subject include a pneumatological component, Althaus’s critique prompted Pannenberg to reply with a clearer, forthright articulation of the Spirit’s role in revelation.169

3.2. The “Spirit-Filled” Gospel Pannenberg would later describe these earliest formulations of the universal intelligibility of God’s revelation in Christ as sounding “a bit triumphalistic” and in need of more restrained formulas. Future delineations would need to “take more account of the intricacies of human language and belief.”170 In other words, Pannenberg came to appreciate that his initial account did not sufficiently appreciate the limitations of human rationality. Rather than convincing him to limit rationality to make room for faith, however, his new appreciation further convinced him that faith’s true danger is its estrangement from rationality. This ongoing concern for rationality induced him to “emphasize the provisional character of the knowledge of faith” more so than in the preceding years.171 Our attention here will focus on Pannenberg’s growing emphasis on the intricacies of human belief and the Holy Spirit. Pannenberg’s publications over the ensuing decades demonstrate increasing care to emphasize the role of the Spirit in relation to the appropriation of revelation in faith. To do so, he draws on Luther’s concept of an inner and outer clarity of scripture. In Luther’s use of the concepts, the outer clarity of scripture means that “its essential content can be set forth from its words with universally evident and materially incontrovertible certainty.” Pannenberg continues: Luther insisted that the content of Scripture is open to all the world. In this opposition to the pope and the enthusiasts he deliberately avoided appealing to the Holy Spirit for the purpose of establishing 167 168

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Braaten, “The Current Controversy on Revelation,” p. 230. Paul Althaus, “Offenbarung als Geschichte und Glaube. Bermerkungen zu W. Pannenbergs Begriff der Offenbarung,” TLZ 87 (1962), pp. 321–30. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Einsicht und Glaube. Antwort an Paul Althaus,” TLZ 88 (1963), pp. 81–92. Pannenberg, “God’s Presence in History,” p. 262. Pannenberg, “God’s Presence in History,” p. 263.

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the content of Scripture. Luther directed his thesis about the outer clarity of Scripture particularly against the idea that Scripture needed an additional factor besides its literal sense in order for its content to become evident.172 For Luther, while the outer clarity can be had by anyone, scripture’s inner clarity, its res, “which leads to personal certainty, as well as its correlative inner judgment” is not to be had without the Holy Spirit.173 In Luther’s thought, the inner clarity of the scriptures was given only by the Spirit and worked to disclose their true meaning.174 Along with Luther, Pannenberg asserts that the Christ-event has meaning in itself because the event is Spirit-filled. When the history of Jesus is reported through proclamation, the Spirit himself is mediated because the Spirit “inheres in the content of the Gospel.”175 By the Spirit, then, Pannenberg connects the outer and inner clarity of scripture: The outer clarity of Scripture must have some connection with the inner—a tendency toward the inner, toward the illumination of the heart—if it is the case that the outer Word bears the Spirit in itself. . . . The Spirit only works through the Word itself, namely, where the Word is trustingly received and one is brought to silence before it (by the ministry of the word [ministerium verbi]), and that not only as an opponent.176 Again, Pannenberg relies heavily on Luther. Pannenberg does not maintain that faith is effected by something other than God. Rather, his formulation is directed instead at how one understands the mediation of that faith. As he articulates it, the question is “whether the Christian has faith which he professes to have received from God himself, through the mediation of a supportable knowledge of the destiny of Jesus and its meaning, or whether his explanation that he owes his faith to God is only a subjective reassurance.”177 Pannenberg rejects making “the decision of faith” the ground of certainty because “with that the founding of faith upon a truth outside myself is in fact surrendered in

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Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Redemptive Event and History (1959),” in Basic Questions in Theology (1970), p. 62. Pannenberg, “Redemptive Event and History (1959),” p. 63. Bernhard Lohse, Martin Luther’s Theology: Its Historical and Systematic Development (trans. Roy A. Harrisville; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999), p. 195. Tupper, The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg, p. 124. Emphasis mine. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “What is a Dogmatic Statement (1962),” in Basic Questions in Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970), p. 190. Pannenberg, “Insight and Faith,” p. 28.

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favor of a self-grounding of faith.”178 Even if someone says, as they should in Pannenberg’s view, that the Holy Spirit effected in them an apprehension of the truthfulness of the message, this should not be misunderstood to mean that the Spirit was “the criterion of the truth of the message.”179 The content of the message is true regardless of how one comes to apprehend its truthfulness. The role of the Spirit as illuminator, Pannenberg explains, is primarily related to “sweeping away” the prejudgments that stand in the way of unencumbered perception of the events that reveal God, which cannot be carried out by reason alone.180 Importantly, this clearing away of prejudgments adds nothing to the truth of the message itself, or to the revelatory content of the history. Regarding the truthfulness of the Christian message, its correspondence to actual historical reality, “faith cannot take up the slack in our knowledge” nor can one appeal to the Spirit as an “asylum ignorantiae when it comes to guaranteeing the objective truth and universal validity of the Christian message.”181 Pannenberg explains that the Spirit does not “join itself to the gospel as something additional. It is rather the case that the proclaimed eschatological event and, proceeding from it, even the process of proclaiming the gospel is itself Spirit-filled.”182 Pannenberg does not deny the importance of proclamation for faith or the connection between the kerygma and the Spirit. In fact, his purpose in formulating the doctrine of revelation this way is to oppose the suggestion that the Spirit must add something to the content of the gospel message, the report of the events of Jesus’ history. On Pannenberg’s view, the gospel needs no supernatural additions because it is already Spirit-filled, and through its proclamation the Spirit goes forward, effecting faith. In light of Pannenberg’s emphasis on the Spirit which “inheres” in the message itself and is active in the proclamation of the Spirit-filled gospel, one suspects that some of Pannenberg’s critics during this time missed what 178

179 180 181 182

Pannenberg, “Insight and Faith,” p. 31. Similarly, “I find the expression that ‘history from beginning to end is a matter of faith’ unfortunate and disturbing because the question of the basis of faith itself remains, that is, of a basis that is prior to the subjective act of faith” (Pannenberg, “A Theological Conversation with Wolfhart Pannenberg,” p. 289); This move aims to “substitute something ‘more objective’ for the unfounded faith-leap of Barth or the purely personal encounter of Bultmann” (S. J. Robert North, “Pannenberg’s Historicizing Exegesis,” Heythrop Journal 12, no. 4 [October 1971], p. 390). Cf. Paul Avis on Pannenberg’s relationship to Schleiermacher (Paul Avis, “Divine Revelation in Modern Protestant Theology,” in Divine Revelation [ed. Paul Avis; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997], p. 57). Pannenberg, “Insight and Faith,” p. 34. Pannenberg, “Insight and Faith,” p. 41. Braaten, “The Current Controversy on Revelation,” p. 231. Pannenberg, “Insight and Faith,” p. 34, n. 11. Similarly, Pannenberg, JGM, pp. 174–5.

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he hoped to emphasize on this account. Two examples will suffice: Richard Hamilton and Kendrick Grobel. Their remarks are found along with Pannenberg’s response in Theology as History.183 Hamilton worries that Pannenberg had substituted the inner witness of the Holy Spirit for “proper methodology” and by doing so leaves little room to affirm with Paul that “No one can say, “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit.”184 Likewise, Grobel rejects Pannenberg’s apparent emphasis that no additional revelation is necessary for an historical event to be perceived as revelation. He insists that something direct, not indirect, is necessary to “leap the barrier.”185 Pannenberg simply dismisses Hamilton’s appraisal as a “crude caricature” of his position, saying, “It is not theoretical knowledge which can create the fellowship with Jesus which alone assures salvation.” Rather, “Such knowledge is . . . not a condition for participating in salvation, but rather it assures faith about its basis. It thereby enables faith to resist the gnawing doubt that it has no basis beyond itself.”186 While not appealing to the Holy Spirit directly, Pannenberg repeats the argument from his essay “Insight and Faith” that faith is not the basis of belief but is indeed something “effected by God himself.”187 Faith’s mediation, therefore, is not reason, rationality, or methodology, but God himself. In response to Grobel, Pannenberg interprets humankind’s desire for a “willingness to see” as a divine illumination that bestows upon men the “willingness to recognize acts of God in particular historical events.”188 Pannenberg agrees that this kind of inspiration should by no means be disputed but contends instead this phenomenon of inspiration should be understood not as a supernatural occurrence but something “to be understood in the broader context of imagination and its efficacy in all human thought and perception.”189 On Pannenberg’s account, the Spirit is the one 183

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187 188 189

James M. Robinson and John B. Cobb Jr., eds., Theology as History (New Frontiers in Theology 3; New York: Harper & Row, 1967). See also, Daniel Fuller, Easter Faith and History (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), pp. 186–7, 252; more recently, Gabriel Fackre, The Doctrine of Revelation (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997), p. 221. William Hamilton, “The Character of Pannenberg’s Theology,” in Theology as History (ed. James M. Robinson and John B. Cobb Jr.; New York: Harper & Row, 1967), p. 188. Similar lines of critique have arisen more recently (John Farrelly, Faith in God through Jesus Christ [Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2005], p. 125; Iain Taylor, “How to be a Trinitarian Theologian: A Critique of Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Systematic Theology,” SJT 60, no. 2 [2007], p. 193). Kendrick Grobel, “Revelation and Resurrection,” in Theology as History (ed. James M. Robinson and John B. Cobb Jr.; New York: Harper & Row, 1967), p. 162. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Response to the Discussion,” in Theology as History (ed. James M. Robinson and John B. Cobb Jr.; New York: Harper & Row, 1967), p. 269. Pannenberg, “Insight and Faith,” p. 28. Pannenberg, “Response to the Discussion,” p. 236. Pannenberg, “Response to the Discussion,” pp. 236–7.

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who “causes the self-evidence of the history of Jesus to radiate” but in no way makes the event itself revelatory outside of the revelatory content it already contains: “The true cognition of an object is not added externally to the object.”190 This appeal to “imagination” points to Pannenberg’s developing conception, which we discussed above, of the Spirit’s role within creation and in relation to the human spirit. Those claiming that Pannenberg advocates for an autonomous reason or methodology miss the greatest intention in his theological program: arguing against autonomy and for the dependency of all creation on its Creator. As he has said, one of the greatest and continuing requirements of Christian theology is to conceive the world as “dependent on God.”191 Readers such as Hamilton and Grobel might be excused because they did not have access to Pannenberg’s mature conceptions. As we will see, however, Taylor levels a similar critique that falls short of fully appreciating the impact of Pannenberg’s fully developed pneumatology on his doctrine of revelation and conversion.

3.3. The Spirit Who Teaches Us to Know the Messiah One finds in Pannenberg’s Systematic Theology the fruition of his earlier thinking related to the work of the Spirit and God’s revelation in history. Toward bringing our discussion above to bear on the questions raised by Taylor, we look now at Pannenberg’s mature formulation of the Spirit, the Spirit who teaches us to know the Messiah. Reflecting on the debate which followed his theses in Revelation as History—that in light of its historical effects the revelation of God “is open to anyone who has eyes to see”192 and needs no additional inspired interpretation—Pannenberg reasserts in ST1 his commitment to this program. However, consistent with his evolving description of the Spirit’s relationship to the proclaimed kerygma, he explicates it with the nuances and emphases on the Spirit’s inhering work seen in our study above.193 Our discussion is limited by our present focus on the aspect of Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation that includes the Spirit’s work in the reception of revelation. Here again, Pannenberg stresses that the event to which the church’s witness points and which constitutes it is not “dumb and dull.”194 In virtue 190 191 192 193

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Pannenberg, “Response to the Discussion,” p. 238. Pannenberg, IST, p. 37. Pannenberg et al., Revelation as History, p. 135. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 249. He concedes that the account of the “eschatological visibility” of the Christ-event in Revelation as History did not duly emphasize the twofold basis of the fulfillment of Old Testament history of revelation in Jesus Christ or the promise of belief in the God of Israel (p. 249, n. 157). Pannenberg, ST1, p. 249.

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of its content, the church’s witness is Spirit-filled, for the Spirit inheres in the event itself and so in its proclamation the Spirit goes forth. Pannenberg explains, “The word of apostolic proclamation does not give radiance to the saving event. It simply spreads abroad the radiance that shines from Christ’s own glory. It thus imparts the life-giving Spirit of God who consummates the event of the resurrection of the Crucified which is the content of the kerygma.”195 While Pannenberg’s emphasis on the Spirit-filled nature of the kerygma appeared cursorily in Revelation as History196 and more readily in “Insight and Faith,” it is most clearly integrated into his overall argument here in ST1. Related to “illumination,” Pannenberg argued in “Insight and Faith” that the Spirit’s illumining work adds nothing to the truth of the message but sweeps away prejudgments so that the truth “which is clear in itself and demonstratable as true” may “dawn upon the individual man.”197 In ST1 he describes more clearly the relationship of proclamation to the present reality of doubt and the broken character of knowledge.198 Naturally, the eschatological revelation of God is present in Christ’s person and work only proleptically, and with the Not Yet of the Christian life this implies a brokenness of the knowledge of revelation in the context of the ongoing debatability and of the power of doubt that constantly assails believers. The third thesis of Revelation as History did not deal adequately with this aspect.199 Apostolic proclamation, then, plays an important function by supplying the necessary knowledge to secure and ground one’s faith. Because the content of proclamation is the Spirit-filled message of the gospel, the Spirit of God, not simply the human speaker is at work. As his dogmatics unfold in volumes 2 and 3, this emphasis on the proleptic presence of God’s revelation in Jesus leads Pannenberg to accord the Spirit a more substantive teaching role than he had in any of his earlier writings. The Spirit is the one who leads to the knowledge of the Son and unfolds the significance of Jesus’ history. In less restrained language than previous accounts, the Spirit gives “knowledge that Jesus is the Messiah of Israel and 195

196 197

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Pannenberg, ST1, p. 249–50. Similarly, “The imparting of the Spirit takes place through the Risen Lord, apostolic proclamation, and belief in the gospel of the resurrection of the Crucified” (p. 318). Pannenberg et al., Revelation as History, p. 136. Pannenberg, “Insight and Faith,” p. 40. Similarly, “To be sure, even the believer is freed from delusion only by the power of God” (p. 41, n. 22). This account follows Pannenberg’s admission in 1981 that future delineations of revelation would take more care to stress the “provisional character of the knowledge of faith” (Pannenberg, “God’s Presence in History,” p. 264). Pannenberg, ST1, p. 250.

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the Son of the eternal Father.”200 Similarly, he describes the Spirit’s work of glorifying Jesus in believers as that which “leads to knowledge of the sonship of Jesus.”201 The apostolic message, then, is decisive for the Spirit’s glorifying work, for it mediates it by virtue of its Spirit-filled content. Pannenberg elaborates: Hence the Spirit gives believers not merely knowledge of the divine dignity of the Son but also, with this knowledge, the beginning of a new filial life in the Spirit, in a fellowship that has a part in the filial relation of Jesus Christ to the Father. The glorifying of the Father and the Son in believers that is the work of the Spirit aims, then, at the reconciliation of the world with God.202 More recently, Pannenberg has described the Spirit’s work as that which “inclines creatures to participate in that obedience of the Son” and by doing so spreads the recognition of the Father’s kingdom.203 This emphasis does not represent a change to his view that God’s revelation is contained objectively in the historical events themselves and that these are, therefore, Spirit-filled.204 Rather, his presentation in the final two volumes of the dogmatics elaborates further the nuances of his earlier views by more adequately addressing the brokenness and incomplete nature of humanity’s noetic abilities. While the gospel needs no further supernatural addition, the events must be unfolded and brought home. Thus, Pannenberg explains: The reconciliation of the world has taken place in the death of Christ (2 Cor. 5:19), even though it is completed only by the Spirit in believers. It is anticipated in the significance of the history of Jesus insofar as this has relevance to all humanity. But his significance needs to be unfolded and in fact brought home to all people. This takes place through the missionary message of the apostles and the church.205 Similarly, in order to come to a saving knowledge of the Son, persons require the Spirit’s work of “teaching us to recognize the revelation of the Father in Jesus words and deeds” and of “reveal[ing] the eschatological meaning of 200 201 202 203 204

205

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 395. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 395. Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 395–6. Pannenberg, “Divine Economy and Eternal Trinity,” p. 82. Emphasis mine. On the relationship between faith and “historical revelation” see Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 153–5. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 454. Emphasis mine.

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the history of Jesus.”206 The Spirit “effects righteousness in us by creating faith in the message of Christ,” for through the Spirit “Christ himself is present to us.”207 The witnessing ministry of the church, in which the gospel message is proclaimed, is, then, decisive for accomplishing reconciliation: “The proclamation is itself part of the making of reconciliation, for in Christ’s stead the apostle beseeches his audience to be reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:20). The apostolic ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18) consists of the proclamation of the gospel, or the message of Christ in which Jesus Christ himself speaks (2 Cor. 2:12; 9:13; 10:14).”208 It is difficult not to notice Pannenberg’s dependence on Luther at this point. Expounding on Mary’s hymn of praise, the Magnificat (1521), Luther expands on the Spirit’s instructing and teaching role, saying: No one can correctly understand God or His Word unless he has received such understanding immediately from the Holy Spirit. But no one can receive it from the Holy Spirit without experiencing, proving, and feeling it. In such experiences the Holy Spirit instructs us as in His own school, outside of which nothing is learned but empty words and prattle.209 In words similar to Pannenberg’s language of “insertion,” Luther describes in the Large Catechism (1529) the Spirit’s activity as taking that treasure which is Christ’s work and causing it to be “published and proclaimed”: Neither you nor I could know anything of Christ, or believe in him and take him as our Lord, unless these were first offered to us and bestowed on our hearts through the preaching of the gospel by the Holy Spirit. The work is finished and completed, Christ has acquired and won the treasure for us by his sufferings, death, and resurrection, etc. But if the work remained hidden and no one knew of it, it would have been all in vain, all lost. In order that this treasure might not be buried but put to use and enjoyed, God has caused the Word to be published and proclaimed, in which he has given the Holy Spirit to offer and apply to us this treasure of salvation.210

206 207 208 209

210

Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 5–6. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 451. Emphasis mine. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 455. Martin Luther, Luther’s Works (ed. Jaroslav Pelikan; trans. A. T. W. Steinhaeuser; vol. 21; Saint Louis: Concordia, 1956), p. 299. Theodore G. Tappert, ed., The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1959), pp. 415–16.

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4. Conclusion Returning to Taylor’s criticisms enables us to draw together our study. Taylor’s appraisal of Pannenberg on the issues of revelation, faith, and the Spirit is representative of the failure to read Pannenberg’s doctrine of faith’s assent in light of his doctrine of the Spirit. Finally, we pick up again the thread of divine faithfulness, in this case related to the Spirit’s ongoing presence and work in creation.

4.1. No Place for the Spirit? We find entry into the heart of Taylor’s critique by noting the purpose of his exposition in Pannenberg on the Triune God: to evaluate Pannenberg’s success in crafting a dogmatics more trinitarian than any of which Pannenberg was aware.211 In this regard, Taylor finds Pannenberg successful on many counts yet believes he fails on several points. The most significant of these for our study is Taylor’s critique of Pannenberg’s view of faith’s assent to divine revelation. He explains: Beyond the fact that this discussion of faith in volume 3 of ST comes within a section dealing with the work of the Spirit in individual Christians, there is no account of what this account of faith has to do with the Trinity, since it is not worked out in terms of the being and action of the divine persons.212 Pannenberg would disagree. The Spirit is very much a part of his account, but not in a traditional way. Although his account of the Spirit’s activity may not run as close to the dogmatic surface as he would like or in terms Taylor may prefer, to assert its absence is to ignore Pannenberg’s own emphasis. What one finds at the heart of Taylor’s analysis is not actually a material claim that Pannenberg’s theology of revelation and faith affords no agency to the Spirit, but that it is merely insufficient. Taylor notes the moments in Pannenberg’s presentation in which he directly attributes faith’s assent to the work of the Spirit, to which he responds by saying this cannot be judged as “sufficient” and that they are “in the background.”213 He continues: Are not the “eyes to see” a gift that can only be given by the special action of the Son and Spirit, and so not generally or naturally available? If revelation and its reception are really possible only by the prevenient action of Son and Spirit, why are they not mentioned in more than a handful of remarks?214 211 212 213 214

Taylor, Triune God, p. 1. Taylor, Triune God, p. 191. Taylor, Triune God, p. 198. Taylor, Triune God, p. 198.

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It becomes clear in remarks such as these that Taylor either disagrees with Pannenberg’s use of language or with the relative weight he gives various discussions, but he cannot successfully make a material claim that Pannenberg nowhere attributes to the Spirit the believer’s apprehension of divine revelation. While comments such as these indicate that Taylor simply does not give Pannenberg credit for sufficiently accounting for the Spirit’s work, other remarks might suggest a less careful reading of Pannenberg. Taylor argues that by not making the Trinity operative “within the account of how we come to know about God” Pannenberg allows for “an empty space we may occupy that is immune from the presence of the triune God of holy love.”215 We could address this argument with two considerations. First, as we have seen in this discussion, by associating both the Spirit’s work of creation and his work within the created order with a field of force, Pannenberg argues that the Spirit is at all times and in all places active. The Spirit is the “source of salvation” who is the “Creator of all life, the source of all knowledge, as also of faith, hope, and love.”216 This is how Pannenberg formulates an account of the Spirit’s work to “teach” and “enable” people to grasp divine revelation that comes from the inside and not from the outside as an alien work. Thus, when Pannenberg’s account is given full opportunity to speak for itself, no “empty space” is found in which humans can be immune from the presence of the triune God, as Taylor alleges.217 Second, it is surprising, in light of the fact Taylor notes the instances in Revelation as History and ST in which Pannenberg attributes the knowledge of revelation to the Spirit’s work, that he would critique Pannenberg on account of 2 Cor. 2.4–5, saying, “Confirmation of the truth of the gospel in the New Testament is always spiritual in nature, that is, it is the work of the Holy Spirit.”218 And elsewhere he asserts, “We believe not in virtue of the intrinsic self-evidence of certain events or indeed of any creaturely phenomena, but in virtue of the intrinsic power of the trinitarian life.”219 On all counts Pannenberg would certainly agree. He would do so based upon his formulation that through the proclamation of the Spirit-filled gospel, the Spirit goes forth, “lead[ing] to knowledge”220 of Jesus’ sonship by

215 216 217

218 219

220

Taylor, Triune God, p. 200. Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 623, 624. This is ironic considering Taylor’s discussion of Pannenberg’s anthropology, in which he discusses Pannenberg’s account of the relationship between the human spirit and the divine Spirit (esp. pp. 97–9). Taylor, Triune God, p. 195. Taylor, Triune God, p. 204. Similarly, “Human creatures don’t simply need ‘divine cognitive help’; rather, we require ‘supernatural knowledge’ by which our epistemological capacities must be transformed ‘to be fitted to his divine reality’ ” (Taylor, “Trinitarian Theologian,” p. 194). Pannenberg, ST2, p. 395.

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unfolding221 and revealing222 the eschatological significance of Jesus’ history to us. The gospel, because of the nature of the event to which it testifies, is filled with the power of the Spirit, which radiates from its content when it is proclaimed. To say that Pannenberg grounds his account in the “intrinsic self-evidence” of Jesus’ history with no agency given to the Spirit is not a fair or accurate reading of Pannenberg’s presentation in ST, or it relies too heavily on Pannenberg’s earlier work, reading that material into his interpretation of ST. As we have shown, Pannenberg builds his account from an extensive argument that the Spirit’s work in creation and reconciliation are the same kind of action: “For the Spirit does not merely give knowledge that Jesus is the Messiah of Israel and the Son of the eternal Father. The knowledge thus imparted rests on the fact that he creates life.”223 The Spirit who actualizes reconciliation is the same Spirit who creates life, and with that life he shares an intimate connection. For human creatures, the Spirit is the source of the spontaneity of their “spiritual activities,”224 and thus coming to knowledge of God’s revelation is very much a work of the Spirit. It is an activity that “no longer comes upon us solely from outside. We ourselves enter into it.”225

4.2. Divine Faithfulness and Contingency Throughout the course of the present work, I have sought to demonstrate that accurately reading Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation includes reading it according to several characteristics, one of them being divine faithfulness. This necessarily includes consideration of Pannenberg’s doctrine of God and his attributes, as we saw in the preceding chapter. The love which defines the relationship of mutual self-giving within the divine life is that which grounds God’s actions in the world, specifically his faithfulness. The “mutual faithfulness of the Son to the Father and the Father to the Son” forms the basis for God’s faithfulness to creation.226 We looked specifically at the sending of the Son as an expression of God’s faithfulness, that “the faithfulness of God finds expression in reconciliation through the blood of Christ.”227 The same can also be said of the Spirit’s work. Divine faithfulness runs closest to the surface of Pannenberg’s pneumatology when he leverages the concept of continuous creation in order to secure the dependency of the created order. The doctrine of creation not only serves to 221 222 223 224 225 226 227

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 454. Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 5–7. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 395. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 17. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 450. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 52. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 436.

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articulate that God’s creative activity was ex nihilo but, for Pannenberg, should demonstrate as well the continual dependence of the world on God as well as its contingency, its openness to the new. His conceptualization of the Spirit as a field of force whose creative activity is continuously active in the created order might be described as the form of God’s “creative providential care of the world.”228 The God who creates is also the one who “holds fast to his creation” from its beginning, “with a view to the eschatological consummation of creation.”229 This is the reconciling God who is trustworthy, the one “in whose hand everything is placed.”230 Related to creation and reconciliation, therefore, the Spirit’s activity in creation is an instance, or outworking, of divine faithfulness. Holding fast in time to his creation, articulated by Pannenberg in terms of continuous creation by the Spirit, God formed a world which is dependent on him for its existence and continuance. It is dependent on the Spirit, which he describes as “a field of creative presence, a comprehensive field of force that releases event after event into finite existence.”231 The parallel here is between creation’s dependency on the Spirit for its sustained existence and the creature’s dependency on the Spirit to “teach,” “reveal,” and “unfold” divine revelation in order that reconciliation may be completed. In both cases, God’s faithfulness to his creation, his holding fast to that which he brought into being, serves for Pannenberg as the central thread unifying his doctrine of reconciliation. Thus, we might say that in the completion of reconciliation one sees the same divine faithfulness enacted through the Spirit’s activity to teach and reveal, just as one sees the same activity of the Spirit to create that which is alive and sustain it in its finite existence. Divine faithfulness also surfaces in Pannenberg’s account of the Spirit relative to the function of natural laws in the created universe.232 One could question whether an account such as Pannenberg’s, in which creation is 228 229

230 231 232

Jackson, “Creation and Reconciliation,” p. 54. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 20. Similarly, p. 297. “Hinzu kommt: Ein Gott, der die Welt aus einer bloßen Laune geschaffen hätte, wäre nicht Urheber einer beständig erhaltenen Welt” (Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 2, p. 35). Pannenberg, IST, p. 37. Pannenberg, IST, p. 49. Pannenberg’s contention that God is the faithful provider of the regularities that result in the universe can be seen in at least three earlier works. The seeds for this argument were sown as early as 1959, related to Pannenberg’s contention that the continuity of history is established by divine faithfulness (Pannenberg, “Redemptive Event,” in Basic Questions in Theology, vol. 2, pp. 74–6, esp. p. 76, n. 145), were developed related to the theology of law in 1977 (Pannenberg, Ethics, pp. 23–56, esp. pp. 30–1), and were given more specifically scientific form in 1988 (Pannenberg, “Contingency and Natural Law,” pp. 109–13, esp. p. 85; see, Niels Henrik Gregerson, “Introduction: Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Contributions to Theology and Science,” in The Historicity of Nature: Essays on Science and Theology [ed. Niels Henrik Gregerson; West Conshohocken, PA: Templeton Foundation Press, 2008], p. ix).

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always originating from the future, would deplete any sense of continuity to the course of history. In other words, “If there were only creativity, there would be nothing to connect past events with future events. . . . There would be no such thing as constancy, normativity or order.”233 Pannenberg mitigates this problem by drawing upon the natural sciences as expressions of divine faithfulness, as divinely ordained laws that mediate or maintain continuity in the created order. The presence of natural laws does not clash with the contingent existence of creation; rather, it serves creation and enables creatures to attain to the independent existence upon which their fellowship with God rests. Thus, God’s faithfulness is expressed through natural laws. Pannenberg explains: The uniformity of events according to law is thus a condition of creaturely independence. If the Creator wanted to bring forth independent creatures, he had primary need of a uniformity of elementary processes. Hence the regulated order of nature does not conflict with the contingent working of God in the producing of creaturely forms but is, in fact, an important means to this end. The uniformity of natural occurrence is on the one hand an expression of God’s faithfulness and constancy to his activity as Creator and Sustainer, while on the other hand it is the indispensable basis for the development of ever new and more complex forms in the world of creatures.234 In turn, the Spirit who directs the course of nature as a creative field is, then, an “expression of the faithfulness of the Creator” who wills to bring forth independent creaturely forms.235 Pannenberg does not wish that people put their faith in natural laws; rather, they should trust in the faithful God who imparted natural laws to establish continuance and continuity to the created order so that it could flourish and attain its destiny of fellowship with its Creator. As Peters, whose account runs parallel in many respects to Pannenberg’s, summarizes, “The call to faith is a call to place our trust not in the ordered cosmos, but rather in the faithfulness of the transcendent God who has committed the divine self to determine a future that is redemptive. In short, trust God, not nature!”236

233 234

235 236

Peters, Science, Theology, and Ethics, p. 91. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 72; similarly, “The laws of nature may be conceived as descriptions of certain uniformities in natural processes that occur in what basically is contingently given. This implies the assumption that all events are in the first place contingent, even when the sequence of events shows similarities or uniform structure” (Pannenberg, “Theology of Creation,” p. 9). Pannenberg, ST2, p. 108. Peters, Science, Theology, and Ethics, p. 92.

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3 the proclamation of the reconciled community

By love, then, believers are taken up into the act of God’s own nature and operation and participate in the movement of his love for the world. —Pannenberg, ST3, 184

In my study of Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation, I first considered his presentation of reconciliation’s “anticipation” through the Son’s activity in the human history of Jesus and the Spirit’s work that realizes or completes reconciliation in the individual. As we saw in Chapter 2, Pannenberg’s account of reconciliation’s “actualization” includes as well the ongoing activity of the Spirit in apostolic proclamation, through which “the event of reconciliation . . . still goes forward.”1 Here we will explore how Pannenberg marks out the church’s active life in terms of an intimate “participation” in the movement of God’s love for the world seen in the pregnant reference at the head of this chapter. In the foreword to ST3 Pannenberg makes known his desire to write a constructive ecclesiology for the “whole church.” Perhaps it should come as no surprise, then, that he parses the relationship between soteriology and ecclesiology in ways that depart from what might be considered “typical” Lutheran presentations. Unlike the majority of Western, Protestant soteriologies, which have focused heavily on salvation’s forensic realities, especially in the Lutheran tradition, the gaze of the Eastern Church has historically been on the Spirit’s work to renew, refashion, and transform the believer in his or her actual being, or ontology. Take the following hymn from St. Symeon as a representative example: Being God, the Divine Spirit refashions completely those whom he receives within himself. 1


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He makes them completely anew. He renews them in an amazing manner.2 The dynamic transformation St. Simeon here testifies to (typical of Orthodox soteriologies) finds echoes in Pannenberg’s own presentation in ways that have historically been uncharacteristic for Lutheran theologians but that Pannenberg believes are in fact true to Luther’s own teaching. The Spirit’s activity is essentially “ecstatic”; it “realizes” the reconciliation that has been made possible through the death and resurrection of Christ by lifting individuals beyond or “outside of” themselves into the shared relationship between the Father and the Son. Subsequently, when Pannenberg’s attention turns to the being and activities of the reconciled community, his account of the church’s life in action is funded by his view of the ecstatic character of the Christian’s life in Christ. Looking back to the quotation at the head of the chapter is helpful for introducing Pannenberg’s conception. The first portion—“By love, then, believers are taken up into the act of God’s own nature and operation”—testifies to the transformation and refashioning that, according to Pannenberg, attend the Spirit’s ecstatic activity in the life of the believer and his or her relationship to the community of faith. The second part of that sentence—“and participate in the movement of his love for the world”—indicates the intimate connection between Pannenberg’s construal of the church’s mission, of which individual believers have a part,3 and the character he gives to the believer’s ecstatic participation in Christ. Pannenberg’s grammar of “participation” is a ready point of entry for considering that correlation. It includes several linguistic and grammatical variations, which unfortunately are flattened by the English translation. (Page references below are from Systematische Theologie, Band III.) Pannenberg uses five different, though related, words which are, in almost every case, rendered as “participate” or “participation”: “Beteiligung” (pp. 57, 236; also “beteiligt an,” p. 57; and “beteiligt an lassen,” p. 236) (literally “participation,” “to be involved,” “to be given a share,” respectively), “mitzuwirken” (p. 236) (literally “to cooperate with”), “Partizipation” (pp. 218, 219) (literally “participation”), “Teilhabe” (pp. 24, 219, 238, 268; and “Anteil haben,” pp. 503, 651) (literally, “to have a part” or “to have a share in,” respectively), and “Teilnehme” (pp. 16, 23, 24, 206) (literally “to take part”). When addressing the believer’s “participation” in divine fellowship, or “sharing in” the life of God, Pannenberg overwhelmingly employs Teilhabe. In general usage, teilnehmen is arguably the most common word used for participation, and so it is of some interest that Pannenberg renders the 2 3

St. Symeon the New Theologian Hymns of Divine Love Hymn, p. 44. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 184.

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believer’s participation in the divine life with Teilhabe, thereby implying an element of givenness, of grace.4 Believers share in the divine life through no credit of their own but on account of God’s place-giving (e.g., pp. 219, 238, 268). While in some instances he uses Teilnahme to describe the same (e.g., p. 222) they are vastly outweighed by the use of Teilhabe. The same could be said concerning Pannenberg’s descriptions of the believer’s participation in Sonship (pp. 24, 219, 238, 268) in Jesus Christ (pp. 375, 503), in salvation (e.g., pp. 476, 481, 612), and in final eschatological salvation (p. 473). In each case, those elements of the Christian life most plainly determined by God’s grace—and therefore most given—are represented with the word (Teilhabe), which best conveys the ideas of reception and gift. This interpretation of Pannenberg’s use of language is substantiated by his usage of Teilnahme, the more active “to take part,” which he repeatedly employs to describe the church’s participation with God in activities directed toward the world (pp. 206, 212, 218, 219, et passim, often phrased Teilnahme an der Liebe Gottes [e.g., p. 230]). Teilhabe is used in this manner only once (p. 222). The problem with the mostly uniform translation of “participation” is not simply that Pannenberg’s style has been made more pedestrian by a lack of variation, it is also the case, at least subtly, that his theology of participation is not represented as accurately as possible. In the original texts, we find Pannenberg clearly distinguishing two forms of participation: that in which the church “has a part” by virtue of its being given to her by grace (participation in the life of God) and that which the church actively “takes a part” (participation in God’s love for the world). Further, Pannenberg employs Beteiligung exclusively to describe activities in which the church participates with God toward the world (pp. 57, 236). A few instances exist, on the one hand, in which Teilhabe and Teilnahme are used interchangeably (shown above), but Beteiligung, on the other hand, is never used to address ontology alone. For Pannenberg, one’s constitution as united to Christ incorporates action. It is significant for our subsequent study of the shape “participation” takes in Pannenberg’s account that the four instances in which he employs Beteiligung and beteiligt an lassen all stress the derivative nature of church activity. In each case, the church’s participation is cast as that which is “given” to it and always derives from God’s initiative. When looking at his response to liberation theology and his delineation of Christian prayer later in our study, we will have opportunity to explore this in greater detail. In drawing out the relationship Pannenberg forges between soteriology and ecclesiology and then examining its implications, my study mirrors the 4

J. Moberly makes a similar point concerning Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s grammar of participation (Jennifer Moberly, “ ‘Felicity to the Original Text’? The Translation of Bonhoeffer’s Ethics” in Studies in Christian Ethics 22, no. 3 [August, 2009], pp. 336–56.).

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reference with which we began this chapter: “By love, then, believers are taken up into the act of God’s own nature and operation and participate in the movement of his love for the world.” This mirroring entails attending first to Pannenberg’s doctrine of justification, in which he parses the Christian life in terms of participation in God’s own nature through being “taken up” into Christ, and second, attending to the element of the church’s participation in God’s reconciling love as prayer, proclamation, and discipleship. Although my order inverts the dogmatic ordering of ST—that is, discussing the doctrine of justification before his account of church witness—it enables us to establish the biblical and conceptual context from which Pannenberg articulates the work of the church as “participation” in God’s reconciling activity.5 My concentration is directed most heavily on those chapters in ST3 in which Pannenberg unfolds his ecclesiology. In chapter 12, he describes the church in consistently pneumatological terms as the sign of the kingdom. Chapter 13 focuses more intently both on the church’s inner life and the basic saving works of the Spirit in individual Christians; it is there that Pannenberg’s doctrine of justification appears. In chapter 14 Pannenberg concludes the ecclesiology material by integrating the church into the history of the divine economy in terms of the church’s election as God’s people. I am not interested here in exploring the dogmatic reasons for Pannenberg’s arrangement or the ecumenical advantages of it, although these are worthy discussions. Rather, toward exploring Pannenberg’s vision for the church’s participation in God’s reconciling acts, I am interested in the relationship between the doctrine of justification and the mission of the church. This is an important theological issue to parse well in its own right because of

5

See Pannenberg, ST3, p. 135. We limit ourselves to those themes and resources deemed most relevant to the present focus: the church’s proclamation for the reconciliation of the world as participation in God’s reconciling works. One instance of that limitation is Pannenberg’s account of law and gospel, which, though important, does not directly pertain to our focus (see Rise, Christology of Wolfhart Pannenberg, pp. 249–59; Mark C. Mattes, The Role of Justification in Contemporary Theology [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004], pp. 56–84). Also, related to the document produced by the Ecumenical Study Group of Protestant and Catholic Theologians in 1985, because Pannenberg did not sit on the working party on justification but on the working party on ministry, we do not make direct reference to this study (Karl Lehmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg, eds., The Condemnations of the Reformation Era: Do They Still Divide? [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989], pp. 26–69). Finally, we interact with works on the doctrine of justification published subsequently to Systematic Theology when appropriate to our study (Wolfhart Pannenberg, Kirche und Ökumene. Beiträge zur Systematischen Theologie Band 3 [Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000]; Wolfhart Pannenberg, Hintergrunde des Streites um die Rechtferigungslehre in der evangelischen Theologie [Munich: Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2000]).

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the implications for divine and human agency; how one conceives the Christian’s life “in Christ” influences his or her portrayal of the Christian’s life in action with God. Significantly for our study, Pannenberg’s account of the church’s proclamation is another instance in his doctrine of reconciliation that brings into focus the patterns of encounter between divine and human action, in this case as “participation.”6 Attending to these patterns further illuminates Pannenberg’s vision for God’s reconciling action.

1. Justification as Participation in Christ As we saw in Chapter 1, Pannenberg describes the essential content of God’s reconciling action as the restoration of broken fellowship between the Creator and his creation.7 The goal of God’s forming and shaping of individuals is that human persons would participate in the trinitarian fellowship of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit. On Pannenberg’s view, while fashioned for independence, accepting their finitude in relation to the infinite God, humans sin by rejecting their finitude and wanting to be as God: “They . . . live in revolt against it [finitude] and seek unlimited expansion of their existence.”8 In the death of Christ the anticipation of reconciliation is achieved, for in it Jesus fully accepts his finitude (i.e., creatureliness) before the Father and provides “deliverance from the lostness of his life” under the powers of sin and death.9 Salvation is delineated then as “participation” in the relation of the Son to the Father, being “caught up both in the Son’s fellowship of love with the Father and in the obedience of the Son of God on his path to the world.”10 In developing an account of the Christian life in terms of transformational participation in Christ rather than “forensic declaration,” Pannenberg contextualizes the doctrine of justification in a manner more faithful to the biblical witness. By trading too heavily on overly forensic doctrines of justification, Pannenberg believes some Reformation theologies limit a full appreciation of one’s transformation in Christ. In the place of an overly forensic doctrine of justification, Pannenberg delineates the Christian’s existence in terms of his or her ontological transformation. The Spirit lifts

6

7 8 9

10

Previous studies of Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation have given little to no attention to his vision for the church’s ministry as a constitutive element in God’s reconciling action (e.g., Shin, “Reconciliation of the world”). Pannenberg, ST2, p. 7. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 24. Similarly, ST1, p. 310; ST3, pp. 601, 629. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 400 (author’s translation. Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 2, p. 444). Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 211–12.

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Christians outside themselves (extra nos) into participation in the filial relation of the Father and the Son. Pannenberg’s movement away from what he deems overly forensic depictions of the Christian life is well illustrated in his preference for the biblical language of adoption (e.g., Rom. 8.14).

1.1. “Adoption” as the Essence of the Christian Life The biblical imagery of adoption, Pannenberg contends, provides a more adequate conceptual framework for salvation than “justification,” and it is more faithful to the biblical depiction of the state of the reconciled. Adoption best describes the filial relationship that believers share between the Father and the Son, to which faith provides access. Referring to the believer’s adoption into Jesus’ relationship to the Father, Pannenberg explains, “Faith gives access to this, for it lifts us above the self to the fellowship with Jesus Christ that includes sharing in his relation to the Father in filial freedom.”11 As those sharing in this relationship, the essence of the Christian life is to be children of God. As the children of God, then, believers are caught up both in the Son’s fellowship of love with the Father and in the obedience of the son of God on his path to the world. In other words, those whom the Spirit of God impels are children of God. Being God’s children is thus of the essence of the Christian life.12 When accounting for the salvation achieved through Christ, accessed by faith and baptism, and experienced by the work of the Spirit, adoption “takes us deeper” than the doctrine of justification, which indicates and expands upon God’s forensic declaration of righteousness.13 By subordinating justification to the theme of adoption, and consequently to participation in the divine life, he decenters the doctrine of justification. Being declared righteous before God is only one of several ways, on Pannenberg’s view, to describe salvation. Rather than justification, Pannenberg argues, “God’s saving work in Jesus Christ is the central theme of all the NT writings. The doctrine of justification is just one of many ways of expounding the theme. Even for Paul himself it is not the only center of his theology that controls all else.”14 In arguing thus, Pannenberg dissents from the dominant trend in Lutheran dogmatics since the Reformation, but, he argues, returns 11 12 13 14

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 192. Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 211–12. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 235. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 213. See also, pp. 235–6. Pannenberg cites H. G. Pöhlmann Rechtfertigung: Die gegenwärtige kontroverstheolgische Problematik der Rechtgertigungslehre zwischen der evangelischlutherischen und der römisch-katholischen Kirche (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1971).

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us to Luther’s own understanding.15 Instead of looking to a forensic declaration as the defining theme of salvation, Pannenberg turns to participation in Christ and adoption as it’s best representation; adoption will “take us deeper” toward defining the state of fellowship with God that the Spirit accomplishes and, he argues, return us to Luther’s own understanding.16 Soteriologies married intimately to forensic justification like those of the Western Reformation tradition, Pannenberg argues, fail to adequately represent the transformation that attends salvation in Christ.17 It has only been within the Western Church, Pannenberg argues, with its dependence on Augustine, that the doctrine of justification has taken prominence over other soteriological themes.18 Signaling the affinities his own proposal will have with it, Pannenberg finds in the Orthodox tradition a propensity for recognizing the broader contours of salvation, specifically fellowship and union

15

16 17

18

For two contemporary examples consider Oswald Bayer and Eberhard Jüngel (Oswald Bayer, “Justification as Basis and Boundary for Theology,” Lutheran Quarterly 15, no. 3 [2001], pp. 274–7; Oswald Bayer, Living by Faith: Justification and Sanctification [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003], p. xiv; Eberhard Jüngel, Justification: The Heart of the Christian Faith [London: T&T Clark, 2001], p. 1). Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 215–19. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 215, n. 366. Among contemporary Lutherans, Pannenberg is not alone in this assessment. Jonathan Linman argues that Lutheran theology has historically interpreted the doctrine of justification “reductionistically” in terms of the “forensic, objective, external, and imputed forgiveness of sins without regard for the transformation of the sinner” and that, until recently, a Lutheran theology of deification or theo¯sis has been largely “untenable” (Jonathan Linman, “ ‘Little Christs for the World’: Faith and Sacraments as Means to Theosis,” in Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions [ed. Michael J. Christensen and Jeffery A. Wittung; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007], p. 190). Linman also contends that the historical preoccupation of Lutheran theology with forensic justification has lost its intelligibility within the current cultural climate, and greater emphasis on mystical union could allow for a more effective proclamation (p. 197; similarly, F. W. Norris, “Deification: Consensual and Cogent,” SJT 49, no. 4 [1996], p. 413; cf. George Maloney, The Undreamed Has Happened: God Lives Within Us [Scranton, PA: University of Scranton Press, 2003], pp. 179–207). Though Pannenberg does not echo these concerns, in an earlier essay on justification he worries about the problems of piety and guilt consciousness indicating his interest for the demonstration of the ongoing viability of the doctrine (Pannenberg, Christian Spirituality, pp. 13–30). Pannenberg, ST3, p. 215. Pannenberg remarks that the almost exclusive dependence within Protestant theology on the doctrine of justification characterizes its historic “tendency at once to claim the total witness of scripture exclusively for its own way of expressing the Christian understanding of salvation” (Pannenberg, ST3, p. 215, n. 366). Similarly, William Rusch, “How the Eastern Fathers Understood What the Western Church Meant by Justification,” in Justification by Faith: Lutherans and Catholics in Dialogue 8 (ed. H. George Anderson, T. Austin Murphy, and Joseph Burgess; Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1985), p. 132.

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with God.19 The historical problems should not be attributed to Luther, Pannenberg insists, for his correlation between justification and “fellowship with Christ” was a significant development beyond Augustine’s relating of justification to the grace of caritas, or renewal. Instead, Pannenberg contends that it was Melanchthon and the Formula of Concord that succeeded in burying Luther’s true account under the weight of a forensic concept of justification.20 The solution to the problems and limitations attending an overly forensic doctrine of justification, Pannenberg argues, can be found by stressing the ecstatic work of the Spirit, a component that “forms the basis of Luther’s understanding of justification.” By the Spirit’s ecstatic work believers are lifted outside themselves in Christ, and the presence of Christ is in them, effecting their ontological transformation.21 A “mystical union” takes place through the Spirit’s activity in which the believer is, in a real way, transformed. The differences here between Augustine and Luther are important, Pannenberg believes. In Augustine’s commentary on the Psalms one finds an exchange “between human sins and Christ’s righteousness”; Luther, however, “does not base the thought on Christ’s intercession but on the union of believers with Christ by faith, which he liked to describe in the language of bride mysticism.”22 For Pannenberg, the benefits of framing salvation primarily according to the believer’s ecstatic participation in Christ rather than God’s forensic, juridical declaration of righteousness are both biblical and Lutheran. It serves as a corrective to the traditional Lutheran conception of forensic justification by more accurately representing Luther’s own formulation of being outside the self “in Christ” through faith. This is not to say that Pannenberg finds no positive or negative functions for the doctrine of justification. Positively, Pannenberg writes that Christian hope looks ultimately to future consummation, and the doctrine of justification assures them of their participation in filial relationship with the Father.23 For Paul, the presence of salvation is articulated sometimes in terms of justification, or peace with God, and not in terms of so¯te¯ria, which he reserved for describing pardon at the future judgment and the resulting 19 20 21 22

23

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 214. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 215. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 216, n. 368. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 217. Emphasis mine. Similarly, Pannenberg, Christian Spirituality, pp. 20–30. Pannenberg’s critique of “traditional penitential pietism” is illuminating and does not appear in the dogmatics: “In the perspective of a purely forensic conception of justification, therefore, believers must turn again and again beyond themselves in their concern for salvation, and thus continue to relate to themselves as sinners. . . . The consequence of this development is that the fundamental idea of the Reformation, the freedom of the believer through participation in Christ, can be rescued only by separating it from penitential piety” (pp. 29–30). Pannenberg, ST3, p. 236.

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“glory of the new life” (Rom. 5.9; cf. 1 Thess. 1.10, 5.9-11).24 Thus, “believers can be said to be saved already (Rom. 8:24), even if also in hope.”25 This is its positive function. Negatively, the doctrine also functions on Pannenberg’s view to “delimit faith” in things other than God, either our human attempts to “get right with God and the self by human action or action, or even to get right with self alone in this way.”26 In the course of my study I will demonstrate how Pannenberg’s commitment to salvation as ecstatic participation in Christ funds his presentation of church witness as that which originates not on its own or in itself but rather in its participation in and captivation by the trinitarian love of God for the world. Having identified Pannenberg’s overarching formulation of ecstatic participation, we need to press further into those influences to which he is self-consciously dependent, specifically Tuomo Mannermaa.

1.2. Union with Christ and Forensic Declaration Pannenberg owes much to the recent work of Tuomo Mannermaa and references him throughout his sections on justification.27 Mannermaa contends that Luther’s doctrine of justification does not exclude but rather implies a “real-ontic” renewal of the justified sinner, leading ultimately to union with God. Faith makes possible a union with Christ, he urges, in which a real renewal takes place in the individual, a transformation or transfiguration of the justified which is best described as participation in the life of God through Christ. Deification, or theo¯sis, is not a foreign concept to Lutheran theology, Mannermaa insists, but one of the images by which Luther himself describes salvation. Reappropriating Luther’s emphasis here, Mannermaa argues, would shift Protestant theology’s dependence on forensic justification

24

25 26 27

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 400. Similarly, “Reconciliation with God through Christ’s death on the cross is the basis of the present form of Christian participation in salvation, which Paul described as justification and as peace with God” (403). Pannenberg, ST2, p. 400. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 236. From among the Finnish Luther scholars, Pannenberg exclusively makes reference to Tuomo Mannermaa (Tuomo Mannermaa, Der im Glauben gegewärtige Christus: Rechtgertigung und Vergottung. Zum ökumenischen Dialog [Hannover: Lutherischen Verglagshaus, 1989]; subsequent references will be from the English translation, Tuomo Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005]). Thus, we restrict our study to Mannermaa and not to others within what is loosely called “The Mannermaa School,” “Finnish Luther Research,” or “The Helsinki School.” It should be noted that this group consists of several different perspectives developed by a number of different Luther scholars engaged in what has often been collaborative work on Luther (Kirsi Stjerna from the Introduction to Christ Present in Faith, p. xi, n. 1; also, Carl Braaten and Robert Jenson, Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998]).

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and its limited definition of salvation as forgiveness alone toward a more holistic and corporate view of salvation.28 Convinced that Luther’s concept of faith denotes a “real union” with the person of Christ, Mannermaa contends that believers thus participate in the very essence of God. He works this out by contending that God’s grace should be conceived both as “favor” (favor), the classical Reformation position, and “gift” (donum), the classical Catholic and Orthodox formula. Because faith means a real union with Christ, and because in Christ the Logos is of the same essence as God the Father, therefore the believer’s participation in the essence of God is also real. This is what Luther means when he speaks of Christ as “gift.” Christ is not only the favor (favor) of God, that is forgiveness, but also, in a real manner, a “gift” (donum).29 Luther’s view of being “in Christ” entails speaking of Christ as “gift” and not “favor” (forgiveness) alone; by participating in forgiveness the believer actually becomes a “partaker in the ‘attributes of his essence.’ ”30 Justification denotes then, as Mannermaa’s interpretation stresses, not merely the imputation of Christ’s merits followed subsequently by the inhabitation of God as a separate phenomenon. Quite differently, “In Luther’s theology, justification in the meaning of the FC [Formula of Concord] and the communication of attributes are both expressions and different sides of one 28

29 30

Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, One with God: Salvation as Deification and Justification (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2004), p. 38; Although Robert Jenson contends that the Mannermaa School has largely “discredited” the “received scholarly understanding of Luther” (Robert Jenson, Systematic Theology [vol. 2; New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999], pp. 296–7), Mannermaa’s interpretation has not been without its Protestant critics, both Lutheran and Reformed. For example, Reinhard Flogaus, Theosis bei Palamas und Luther: ein Beitrag zum ökumenischen Gespräch (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), p. 381; Gösta Hallonsten, “Theosis in Recent Research: A Renewal of Interest and Need for Clarity,” in Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions (ed. Michael J. Christensen and Jeffery A. Wittung; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), pp. 282–3; Michael S. Horton, Covenant and Salvation: Union with Christ (Louisville/London: Westminster John Knox, 2007), pp. 174–80; Robert T. Kolb, “Contemporary Lutheran Understandings of the Doctrine of Justification: A Selective Glimpse,” in The Gospel of Justification in Christ: Where Does the Church Stand Today? (ed. Wayne Stumme; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), pp. 155–6; Lohse, Martin Luther’s Theology, p. 220; Rusch, “How the Eastern Fathers Understood,” p. 142; Bruce McCormack, “What’s at Stake in the Current Debates over Justification?,” in Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates? (ed. Mark Husbands and Daniel J. Treier; Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2004), pp. 95, 110–13. Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, p. 19. Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, p. 21.

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and thesame event.”31 Interpreting Luther this way, Mannermaa argues against the Formula of Concord and “the major part of Lutheran theology,” saying that the distinction drawn there between “justification” and “the divine indwelling in the believer” is entirely alien to Luther’s own theology.32 By drawing upon Luther’s language of mystical union and marriage metaphors, Mannermaa suggests an interpretation of Luther’s theology very similar to typical Eastern Orthodox doctrines of deification: “Luther does not hesitate to conclude that in faith the human being becomes ‘God,’ not in substance but through participation.”33 In Robert Jenson’s words, whose formulation is highly consonant with Pannenberg’s, “In the ontological mutuality of word and faith, Christ and the believing soul make one entity, so that when God—the Father!— attributes Christ’s divine righteousness to the believer, he is only registering the truth.”34 We are righteous in that Christ the Son unites with us. Drawing on Luther’s use of bride mysticism, both Pannenberg and Mannermaa argue for a dynamic union with Christ and the inner transformation therein effected.35 What is the relationship, then, between this ontological change in the Christian believer and God’s forensic declaration of righteousness? For Pannenberg, God’s declaration of righteousness presupposes righteousness and is itself a basis for justification. God’s declarative action is “wholly analytical,” Pannenberg stresses, for it corresponds to that which it refers, “not in the sense of anticipating an initiated making righteous of sinners in themselves as their moral renewal, but as a verdict on them as believers.”36 Another approach, taken by Eberhard Jüngel and Bruce McCormack, would be to grant God’s declarative word a “creative” (Jüngel) or “transformative” power (McCormack).37 31 32 33

34

35

36 37

Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, p. 22. Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, p. 41. Mannermaa, Christ Present in Faith, p. 42. Similarly, “The fact that this union of God and man does not signify a change in substance does not allow us to infer, though, that this unio does not signify a community of being” (Tuomo Mannermaa, “Theosis as a Subject of Finnish Luther Research,” Pro Ecclesia 4, no. 1 [1995], p. 43). Robert Jenson, “Justification as a Triune Event,” Modern Theology 11, no. 4 (1995), p. 425. Similarly, Jenson, Systematic Theology, 2, p. 300. Similarly, Christoph Schwöbel, “A Quest for an Adequate Theology of Grace and the Future of Lutheran Theology: A Response to Robert Jenson,” Dialog 42, no. 1 (2003), pp. 24–31. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 217. On the relationship between Luther and mysticism see Franceen Vann Neufeld, “The Cross of the Living Lord: The Theology of the Cross and Mysticism,” SJT 49, no. 2 (1996), pp. 131–46. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 224. See Jüngel, Justification, pp. 210–14; McCormack, “What’s at Stake,” p. 107. Similarly, Simon Gathercole, “The Doctrine of Justification in Paul and Beyond: Some Proposals,” in Justification in Perspective: Historical Developments and Contemporary Challenges (ed. Bruce L. McCormack; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), pp. 226–9.

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Pannenberg recognizes that Luther rarely spoke about the relationship between the divine verdict and the “ontic” dimensions of justification. Thus, Pannenberg notes, Luther’s formula of simul iustus et peccator is often interpreted incorrectly to mean that Luther believed union with Christ effects no change in the constitution of the person whatsoever. On the contrary, Pannenberg argues, purely forensic soteriologies have more to do with Melanchthon than either Luther’s theology or, for that matter, Paul’s.38 Both the Tridentine account of sacramental grace and the Reformation doctrines of justification as formulated by Luther, Melanchthon, and the Formula of Concord all have their inner defects when considered in light of the biblical material (so shifting allegiances to the Council of Trent won’t solve the problem either).39 Instead, Pannenberg’s solution is an exegetical one. The balance Pannenberg works to retain between grace as gift and favor is entirely dependent on faith’s ecstatic structure.40 Pannenberg appeals to Paul’s description of the gift of the Spirit in Rom. 5.5 (“and hope does not disappoint us, God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us”). The correct reading, he argues, depends on the context of verse 2, “which refers to ‘grace’ in which we have achieved a firm standing.” This shows, Pannenberg believes, that “the statement regarding the gift of the Holy Spirit and the love of God that is poured into our hearts by him relates to the concept of grace.”41 Personal grace, as the favor of God to us in his condescension, cannot then be set in antithesis to the idea of a gift of grace granted to us.42 When interpreted correctly, Rom. 5.5 demonstrates that grace can be conceived as gift, donum, without overturning Luther’s rejection of the Latin Church’s thesis of created grace. On Pannenberg’s account, the ecstatic structure of faith—found in the biblical text—retains the proper balance between grace as gift and grace as favor. The Reformation rejection of created grace lies in the ecstatic nature of faith and the Spirit’s activity, a contention for which Pannenberg argues throughout his doctrines of creation and reconciliation. Pannenberg believes that by leveraging the concept of faith’s ecstatic structure the issues are solved that have historically orbited the Christian teaching about the ontological nature of union with God: How can creatures be united to 38 39 40

41 42

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 219. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 221. “It will not do to set personal grace, as the favor of God in his condescending to us, in antithesis to the idea of a gift of grace that is granted to us,” Pannenberg argues, “Grace relates not merely to God’s personal encounter with us but grasps us and is assigned to us as a gift” (ST3, p. 199). Pannenberg, ST3, p. 199. On this point, Pannenberg actually looks to Melanchthon for support—whom he has opposed on every other point—because he came to the same conclusion in his later 1559 Loci.

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God without abolishing or depleting divine transcendence? Pannenberg explains: Only the ecstatic structure of faith enables us to understand that the Spirit of God and therefore also the love of God that is poured into believers’ hearts do not become part of our creaturely reality when God’s Spirit is imparted to us as a gift and he pours God’s love into our hearts.43 Does this infer that the objections raised by theologians of High Scholasticism are not avoided, that “this would mean God’s having to become part of our created reality”?44 No, he argues. A robust appreciation for the ecstatic work of the Spirit, both maintains divine transcendence and makes the soteriology of the Eastern Church “biblically concrete.”45 When read together with his exegesis of Rom. 3.26, the underlying structure of the proposal for adoption (ecstatic union with Christ) as the primary concept for salvation comes into clearer view. Based on his interpretation of Rom. 3.26, Pannenberg faults both Reformation theology and the Council of Trent for inaccurately understanding the proper sequence relative to the divine declaration of righteousness. According to Rom. 3.26, he argues, union with Christ precedes God’s act of declaring people righteous. They are declared righteous, in other words, because of their union with Christ, a union in which they are outside themselves in Christ and at the same time Christ is truly in them. Justification by God, his declarative and forensic action, is then “a consequence of our being joined by the Spirit to Christ” and not that which establishes fellowship with God.46 It is important to distinguish what Pannenberg is and is not saying. First, he believes the Reformers were correct to render the Pauline dikaioun as the declaration of righteousness and not “ ‘to make righteous’ in the sense of our ethical or physical transformation.”47 At issue in this declaring of believers righteous is God’s verdict at the last judgment, which in virtue of their relationship with Jesus Christ has been passed already for believers, although for Paul the resultant waiting for eschatological salvation will end only at Christ’s return. . . . 43 44 45

46 47

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 200. Emphasis mine. Similarly, ST3, 202. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 200. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 201. Pannenberg here cites Vladimir Lossky for the correlation between the Pauline thought of adoption and it’s attending implication of participation in Christ’s sonship and the Eastern doctrine of theo¯sis (Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church [Cambridge: James and Clark, 1968], pp. 283–5; similarly, Jenson, “Justification as a Triune Event,” p. 426). Taylor, Triune God, p. 157. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 223.

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Furthermore, this process of change should not be called “justification” at any rate in the Pauline sense, for this word denotes declaring righteous.48 Second, he maintains, on the one hand, the dominant Reformation interpretation of dikaioun as a purely declarative act and not a process of renewal changing us from sinners into fundamentally righteous persons, as Trent sought to articulate it. The change he wants to make, on the other hand, is to stress that God’s declaring righteous “cannot be regarded as the basis of the righteousness of believers but already presupposes this.”49 Except for some instances in Luther, he finds Reformation theology missing the proper order; in Rom. 3.26, “God declares righteous those who are so on the basis of faith,” and in faith believers are united to Christ.50 In faith, as Pannenberg has been arguing, believers are lifted outside themselves and into the fellowship of the Father and the Son by the Spirit and actually receives Christ in faith. The divine verdict has faith as its object, insists Pannenberg.51 This ordering is a renewed approximation of the sequence in Rom. 3.21–26, “where the fact of righteousness of faith precedes the declaration of righteousness.”52 Though his view finds affinities with Orthodox divinization, in this respect he distinguishes himself from it. Related to the sequence of God’s declarative act and the prior union of the believer with Christ, Pannenberg favors the older Lutheran view which saw “justification grounded in and included in the union with Christ,”53 which he believes retains the Reformation insight that the only object of the divine sentence is fellowship with Christ.54 George Hunsinger’s reading of Luther comes to the same conclusion. “When Luther is read in this way,” explains Hunsinger, we are not righteous because we are declared righteous. On the contrary, just the reverse. Because we are truly righteous, we are 48 49 50 51 52

53 54

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 223. Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 223–4. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 223. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 226. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 229. Similarly, Bruce Marshall contends that justification be read as both “irreducibly forensic” and “irreducibly transformative” which brings him to the same conclusion as Pannenberg regarding the dependence of God’s declarative action on a prior union of the believer with Christ (Bruce Marshall, “Justification as Declaration and Deification,” IJST 4, no. 1 [2002], p. 3). Pannenberg, ST3, p. 230, n. 431. Because union with Christ functions this way for Pannenberg, one will not find a strict ordo salutis in his dogmatics. For the same reason many recent Reformed theologians have moved away from using an ordo salutis (e.g., Richard Gaffin, Resurrection and Redemption: A Study of Paul’s Theology [Philipsburg: P&R Publishing, 1987], pp. 140–2; A. T. B. McGowan, “Justification and the Ordo Salutis,” in Justification in Perspective [ed. Bruce McCormack; Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006], p. 162).

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declared righteous by Christ the Judge. We have been made righteous precisely by the virtue of our participation in him, and so by grace through faith. Through our participatio Christi, he imputes to us his righteousness and grants us a share in his life. The proper sequence, logically speaking, runs from participation to imputation to declaration, not the reverse.55 On Pannenberg’s reading, Osiander’s contention that the imputation of Christ’s righteousness entails an essential union with Christ’s deity “missed any consideration of the Spirit as the medium of union with Christ.”56 Appealing to the ecstatic structure of faith, he argues, “enables us to think of the participation of the creature in God without injury to God’s transcendence, namely, by means of the idea of an ecstatic participation of the creature in the divine life outside the self in Christ (extra nos in Christo).”57 When conceived along these lines, true to Luther but more importantly to Paul, Pannenberg believes that we can speak of a real union with God— participation in his life—without depleting a robust notion of divine transcendence, or presenting human finitude as an empty concept. In Norman Russell’s magisterial treatment of deification in the Greek patristic tradition, he argues that Pannenberg exemplifies a trend in modern theology to reappropriate patristic notions of deification without jettisoning an equally robust notion of human finitude.58 He echoes Pannenberg’s insistence that Christian theology ought to maintain divine transcendence in the application of redemption while simultaneously retaining a robust notion of real, ontological transformation. For Russell, Karl Barth is the first and chief example of a modern theologian fully invested in retaining both the gift of creaturely finitude and a new “kinship of being.”59 In chorus with Barth and Russell, Pannenberg insists that redemption’s application effects an ontological transformation without depleting or deemphasizing one’s individuality or finitude. We might say, then, that while Pannenberg’s soteriology includes an underlying mystical element it is not consonant with an Orthodox theology of 55

56 57

58

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George Hunsinger, “Fides Christo Formata: Luther, Barth, and the Joint Declaration,” in The Gospel of Justification in Christ (ed. Wayne Stumme; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), p. 75. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 220, n. 390. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 194. Pannenberg describes this move as “in some sense a rehabilitation of Lombard’s teaching about the identity of caritas and the Holy Spirit in face of his High Scholastic critics, though qualified by reflection on the ecstatic structure of faith.” Regarding a reappropriation of Lombard, Pannenberg believes he has Luther on his side. Norman Russell, The Doctrine of Deification in the Greek Patristic Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 319. Russell cites, Pannenberg, ATP, p. 524. Barth, CD IV/1, p. 599.

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divinization, nor does Pannenberg’s theology include a doctrine of theosis. Rather than compare Pannenberg’s soteriology to Orthodox doctrines of theosis, it is more fruitful to interpret Pannenberg’s efforts in light of his reading of Luther. Consider Pannenberg’s comments on Luther’s notion of “trust”: Luther not only added the notion of trust, but he wanted to emphasize that the personal centre itself changes in the act of trust, because the trusting person surrenders to the one in whom such confidence is entrusted. . . . The point was crucial in Luther’s argument, but difficult to grasp.60 Pannenberg goes on to suggest that Melanchthon among other early followers failed to adequately comprehend Luther’s insight here. “Melanchthon did not grasp Luther’s profound insight that faith by way of ecstasis participates in the reality of Christ himself and therefore transforms the faithful into Christ’s image.”61 Luther saw faith as that which “seizes us and puts us outside ourselves,” an element of faith which Pannenberg describes as “ecstasis”: “We literally leave ourselves to the one to whom we completely entrust ourselves.”62 Said differently, on this conception of faith, to trust another is to transfer one’s “centre of gravity to that other.”63 Luther would never say that one adds faith, but that in faith one’s entire orientation to the world is shifted from themselves to God, the center of gravity moves from self to Christ. So, when Pannenberg speaks of faith’s ecstatic structure and the attendant transformation of the individual in Christ he simply sees himself following Luther. In the Spirit believers are transformatively united with Christ outside themselves (extra nos) and participate in Christ’s righteousness, holiness, and life—and are, therefore, justified. The implications of this for Pannenberg’s

60

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Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Freedom and the Lutheran Reformation,” Theology Today 38, no. 3 (1981), pp. 290–1. Since the publication of ST Pannenberg has further elaborated on the ecstatic structure of faith and its roots in Luther’s bride mysticism; one sees in these latter pieces a more focused reiteration of the justification material in ST and a return to the themes he addressed in “Freedom and the Lutheran Reformation”: Wolfhart Pannenberg, “ ‘Outside Us’—Luther’s Contribution to Christian Piety,” Luther Digest 12 (2004), pp. 65–9; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Luther’s Contribution to Christian Spirituality,” Luther Digest 12 (2004), pp. 70–3. Pannenberg, “Freedom and the Lutheran Reformation,” p. 292. Pannenberg, “Freedom and the Lutheran Reformation,” p. 291. Daphne Hampson, Christian Contradictions: The Structures of Lutheran and Catholic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 18.

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conception of the church’s mission will become increasingly plain as we move into the following sections. WE BEGAN this chapter as an exploration of a particularly telling statement that encapsulates Pannenberg’s vision for the nature and character of the church’s life in action as participation in God’s ongoing work of reconciliation. We gave ourselves to the first half—“By love, then, believers are taken up into the act of God’s own nature and operation”—with the hope of gaining purchase of the biblical and conceptual context from which Pannenberg’s account of the church’s movements as “participation” arises. It is my contention that Pannenberg’s thinking on the constitution of the Christian life as ecstatic participation funds his account of the church’s ministry as participation in God’s reconciling acts. The second half of that passage, “and participate in the movement of his love for the world,” remains before us as we turn our attention specifically to Pannenberg’s theological vision for the church’s participatory action.

2. The Church’s Ecstatic Participation in God’s Reconciling Activity The spirituality of imitation of Christ which is sometimes found in the West is foreign to Eastern spirituality, which may rather be defined as a life in Christ.64 Pannenberg has been criticized for not connecting Christian dogmatics to ethics intimately enough,65 and perhaps this analysis should not be surprising considering Pannenberg’s own admission early in ST1: “The distinction between dogmatics and ethics is not just a division of labor, as if often claimed today with an appeal to Barth. . . . It is a material distinction. Ethics deals with us and our actions, dogmatics with God and his actions even when dealing with creation or the church.”66 This statement comes in the opening section of ST1, but more recently Pannenberg’s position appears to have changed, and he seems to have closed the gap. Pannenberg has recently

64 65

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Lossky, Mystical Theology, p. 215. Christoph Schwöbel, “Rational Theology in Trinitarian Perspective: Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Systematic Theology,” in Journal of Theological Studies 47, no. 2 (1996), p. 526. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 59, n. 128.

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written that the universal significance of the incarnation for human destiny makes dogmatics and ethics “necessarily connected.”67 Dogmatics has to do with God and his action, certainly also with its consequences in the creation of the world and humanity, with the fact of human sin and its reconciliation, finally even with the sanctification of human life: Related to this theme of human sanctification through the inclusion of our life and death in the Son’s relation of Jesus Christ to the Father, dogmatics touches particularly closely with Christian ethics.68 In another recent work on ethics, Moral und Religion, especially pertinent to our study of church proclamation, he draws Christian ethics and mission closely together, saying, “The closest ethical conclusion from fellowship with God is participation [Teilnahme] in the movement of his love toward his creatures, therefore morality itself.”69 Although he distances the tasks of ethics and dogmatics in ST1, it would seem that by ST3 Pannenberg has begun moving toward the more intimate connection between them which is evidenced in these later essays. In fact, from the material we explore in what follows, one might say this about the linkage Pannenberg forms between salvation as ecstatic participation in Christ and Christian mission: As constituent elements to God’s reconciling work, proclamation and mission to the world are directly related to, and outcomes of, ecstatic union with Christ. Whether or not such a view sufficiently enables Pannenberg in ST to flesh out the church’s active life as a genuine instance of ongoing “commerce and communion” between God and human creatures is a question to which we will need to return. It is well to keep in mind that the following does not intend a comprehensive exploration of Pannenberg’s ethics specifically but instead probes the relationship between his doctrine of justification and his account of the church’s mission and actions in hopes that this will draw into view Pannenberg’s vision for “participation” (and with it so also the patterns of encounter between God and creatures). Toward this end, my investigation will consider how Pannenberg’s concept of ecstatic participation in Christ funds his account of the church’s witnessing activities. First uncovering the intratrinitarian genesis of church mission on Pannenberg’s account positions us well to further consider his presentation of the church’s ecstatic participation in God’s reconciling activity in the latter half of the study.

67 68 69

Pannenberg, Grundlagen der Ethik, p. 5. Pannenberg, Grundlagen der Ethik, p. 103. Pannenberg, “Moral und Religion (1998),” p. 89.

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2.1. The Intratrinitarian Genesis of Church Mission Throughout Systematic Theology God’s intratrinitarian life secures for Pannenberg the starting point for explicating his theological vision, and his account of the church’s witnessing activity is no exception.70 The shared divine life of the Father, Son, and Spirit, characterized by mutual selfdistinction and love, determines his formulation of the church’s mission. We have looked at Pannenberg’s conception of the shared divine life before, but in this case we do so specifically to draw out the relationship between divine and human love. Christian theology’s most fundamental statement about God, its most basic assertion, Pannenberg urges, is, “God is love.” From all eternity the Father loves the Son in the Spirit who is the bond of their unity as one God. To say, “God is love” is to affirm more than the activities of their mutual relations or to describe one of God’s attributes or economic actions. Instead, “love as the power that manifests itself in the mutual relations of the trinitarian persons is identical with the divine essence.”71 Love “manifests itself through the reciprocal relation of those who are bound together in love”; love is the spirit of fellowship itself which binds one person to another. For Pannenberg, then, when we say, “God is love” or “God is Spirit” we are indicating something basic, or fundamental, about God’s essence. Gutenson even suggests that, for Pannenberg, the “relationally structured love shared by the three Trinitarian persons” constitutes the divine essence.72 “Love is” Pannenberg explains, “no more a separate subject than the Spirit apart from the three persons. As the one and only essence of God it has its existence in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But it is the eternal power and deity which lives in the Father, Son, and Spirit through their relations and which constitutes the unity of the one God in the communion of these three persons.”73 And how does Christian theology know this? Pannenberg’s answer is simply to look at the history of Jesus. As John and the apostle Paul both emphasis, in Jesus’ mission and work one “sees” the event of God’s merciful love revealed and made concrete; in the historical revelation of Jesus, one witnesses the divine love that “constitutes the concrete unity 70

71 72 73

For example: “By linking intratrinitarian relations to the idea of God’s action as Creator, Sustainer, Reconciler, and Consummator of a world of creatures makes possible a clarification of these difficulties by enabling us to think in trinitarian fashion of the relation of the one God to the world . . . so that the reciprocal action of the persons always lies beyond the relation of the one God to creatures and the relation of creatures to the one God. The action of the one God in relation to the world is not wholly different from the action of the trinitarian life” (Pannenberg, ST2, p. 5). Pannenberg, ST1, p. 427. Gutenson, Reconsidering the Doctrine of God, p. 224. Emphasis mine. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 428.

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of the divine life in the distinction of its personal manifestations and relations.”74 One distinctive aspect of Pannenberg’s view of church mission in ST is the manner in which these trinitarian considerations determine its shape and fund its content. Correctly understanding the love that issues forth from reconciled individuals—both toward God and neighbor—will come, Pannenberg argues, only from securing its source in the shared love of God’s essence. The Father loves the Son from all eternity and only in him does he love creatures. Love of neighbor, then, manifesting itself through gospel proclamation, is “participation [Teilnahme] in the Father’s love for the Son that extends also to the world of creatures and embraces it.”75 This secures for Pannenberg that love directed toward other creatures is not a subsequent ethical imperative, something believers do based on a command alone; rather, to love one’s neighbor is to be caught up into the very dynamic of God’s own self-enfolding love turned toward the world. As such, love for God and neighbor, actions in which believers participate with God by the Holy Spirit’s ecstatic activity, are characterized by “mutuality.” This mutuality, he explains, “has its basic eternal form [Grundform] in the mutual perichoresis.” Hence believers’ participation [Teilnahme] in God’s love does not simply mean participation in its movement toward the world, i.e., love of neighbor, which includes the love of brothers and sisters that binds believers to one another. It also means love for God as a response to his love for us.76 Pannenberg’s exposition of Rom. 5.5 is again highly influential, for as he understands it, God’s love poured into believers’ hearts is the basis for the perichoretic “form” that intimately connects love of God and love of neighbor in the life of the believer.77 In considering these two loves, Pannenberg explains, “we do not have two whole different realities but two aspects of

74 75

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Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 422–3, 432. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 187. In almost all instances, Pannenberg describes the church’s activities of participation in God’s love for the world with “Teilnahme” and its cognates (Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 3, pp. 24, 206, 208, 212, 218–19, 222, 230, 237, 504). The few instances when he conveys the idea with either “Partizipation” (pp. 218–19) or “Beteiligung” (pp. 57, 236) appear to be stylistic variations. In one such example, he uses “Partizipation” and “Teilhahme” to render the same concept only a couple sentences apart (Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 3, p. 219). Pannenberg, ST3, p. 204. Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 192–3.

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human participation [Partizipation] in one and the same love of God that according to Rom. 5:5 the Holy Spirit has poured into believers’ hearts.”78 The implications for church mission that flow from Pannenberg’s stress on the believer’s ecstatic participation in the divine life (adoption) should now become apparent. As we saw earlier, Pannenberg rejects the antithesis between God’s grace as either favor or gift, for he believes it does not do justice to Paul’s statements. Grace is not forgiveness alone (favor), for as Rom. 5.5 demonstrates, grace “grasps us and is assigned to us as a gift.”79 Through a robust account of the Spirit’s ecstatic activity as the medium of union with Christ, the Latin concept of “created grace” can be rejected while embracing God’s grace as the gift which generates a real-ontic transformation of the believer. Thus, the ecstatic participation in divine fellowship which characterizes the Christian life has two implications. First, believers are “caught up both in the Son’s fellowship of love with the Father” and, second, “in the obedience of the Son of God on his path to the world.”80 Related to the first, the believer’s adoption by God provides shape and actuality to their love for God “in which believers are set when by the Spirit they come to share in Jesus’ filial relation to the Father.”81 While faith provides access to this fellowship, Pannenberg wants to say more than that: faith implies love of God as a presupposition. Faith provides access to fellowship with God “in such a way that in the act of faith the filial relation to the Father takes shape already, for those who trust in Jesus attain by him to trust in the Father.”82 By arguing that faith includes love of God, Pannenberg forms an intimate connection between faith, adoption, and love such that love for God is actually generated by his intratrinitarian love flowing to us. Our elevation to participation into Jesus’ filial relation to the Father is taken up into the thought of the downward movement of God’s agape¯ to us, and our understanding of the divine love itself is modified also by making room for an element of mutuality. . . . Precisely in relation to the mutuality of relations between the trinitarian persons, each of which seeks the glorifying of the other, the Trinity shows itself to be the expression and form of the divine love that constitutes the divine life.83 And again he justifies this mutuality through his exposition of Rom. 5.5. By interpreting the genitive of Rom. 5.5 as subjective, he interprets the gift of 78 79 80 81 82 83

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 193. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 199. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 211. Emphasis mine. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 192. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 192. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 192.

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the Spirit to be the divine love itself that dwells in believers by the Holy Spirit. Love of God and love of neighbor are, then, “two aspects of human participation in one and the same love of God” poured into the hearts of believers by the Holy Spirit. Related to the second implication, being caught up in the Son’s mission to the world, the Spirit’s ecstatic activity lifts believers above themselves into union with Christ and generates their participation “in the movement of the trinitarian God toward the creation, reconciliation, and consummation of the world.”84 By giving the ecstatic nature of human participation in God significant dogmatic weight, Pannenberg believes divine transcendence is protected while leaving open the possibility for an intimate correlation with church mission as “participation in his gracious turning to the world.”85

2.2. The Shape of Ecstatic Participation In dogmatics that trade heavily on the coherence of conceptual interrelationships, such as Pannenberg’s, conceiving the church’s life in action might raise any number of related questions concerning the adequacy of those interrelationships: What does the church’s participation in God’s reconciling activity include and what does it exclude? Is one participating agent given greater dogmatic emphasis, and if so, which one and to what end? What distinctions exist between creaturely and divine activity, and if none are spelled out what carries the weight of explicating their participation? Questions such as these might not press so heavily on theologies which operate more descriptively, allowing the biblical text to carry the dogmatic load. However, as we have noted before, Pannenberg’s dogmatics are intended to be “public,” remaining accessible to the wider academic community and the culture at large. Toward these ends ST employs a great deal of exegesis and historical analysis, but its energies are spent demonstrating the coherence of the conceptual interrelationships undergirding the Christian message.86 For Pannenberg, then, conceiving the church’s participation in God’s reconciling activity as “participation” depends ultimately on his conception of the God-world relationship. The patterns of encounter between divine and human action are shaped by the God-world relation determined by Pannenberg’s doctrine of God, according to which no competition exists 84 85

86

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 193. Related to Lombard and his rejection by the High Scholastics, Pannenberg argues that when the gift of grace is understood according to the ecstatic character of the Spirit’s activity, the truth of Lombard’s position can be salvaged, even rehabilitated, so that Luther’s own sympathies are given sufficient form (Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 193–4). See, Pannenberg, “Theology Examines Its Status and Methodology,” pp. 3–10.

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between divine and creaturely activity.87 As the true Infinite, God includes within himself the antithesis with finite creatures without dissolving their finitude, therefore God’s action maintains the independence and freedom of creatures. God is present to the creature not in “power and holiness” but “with it at its own place and under the condition of its existence.”88 For instance, as we saw in the previous chapter, Pannenberg develops his formulations of the Spirit’s activity according to a field of force to conceptualize God’s actions. Pannenberg finds no “tension” between divine and human agency but considers the church’s life to be an ecstatic life in the Spirit, outside the self “in Christ.” The participatory actions of the church do not compete with God; as the acts of the people of God they are “taken up” into the movements of God, who contains within himself the distinction between himself and finite creatures without destroying the creatures’ finitude.89 As we noted above, Pannenberg variously conceives the patterns of encounter between divine and human action, in some cases according to God’s creative action, in others related to his eternality, and still in others with reference to God’s action as Spirit. Yet his exposition in each case is dogmatically funded by his doctrine of God and the relationship between God and creatures there conceptualized. Related to the church’s action as “participation,” Pannenberg bridges what could be seen as a competitive situation with a pneumatological solution: through the Spirit’s activity, the believer is ecstatically “taken up” into Christ and into the filial relationship of the Son to the Father and participates in God’s love for the world. (The first part of this chapter made that plain.) This conception is not unlike Luther’s description of life “in Christ.” In The Freedom of the Christian he writes, “Mine are Christ’s living, doing and speaking, his suffering, and dying, mine as much as if I had lived, done, spoken, suffered, and died as he did.”90 In a manner quite similar to Pannenberg, Mannermaa elaborates on Luther’s Freedom by drawing together the consequences of Christ’s “real” presence: The Christian lives not in himself but in Christ and in his neighbor. The same thing can be expressed the other way around: The Christian lives not himself, but Christ and the miserable neighbor live in the life which he lives. This is Luther’s doctrine of Vergöttlichung.

87 88 89 90

See Chapter 1, Section 3.2. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 421. Pace Mattes, Role of Justification, pp. 56–84. Martin Luther, Luther’s Works (ed. Jaroslav Pelikan; trans. A. T. W. Steinhaeuser; vol. 21; (St. Louis: Concordia, 1957), p. 149.

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The Christian has become the Christ of his neighbor: Christianus Christus proximi.91 It is important to note that for Pannenberg God includes creatures in his work of love, and this inclusion does not diminish the necessity that reconciliation is conceived as God’s work to reconcile the world to himself according to his faithfulness to creation (2 Cor. 5.18–19). Against liberation theology, then, Pannenberg describes the church’s constitution as a eucharistic “sign” which points toward God’s action to consummate his kingdom, and he identifies prayer as the characteristic act of the church’s participation that remains dependent on God’s action. I tease this apart in the following discussion related to the church’s constitution as “sign” and her activity of prayer. First, by looking at Pannenberg’s response to liberation theology we cannot miss his effort to speak of real, genuine participatory action while maintaining his focus on God as the reconciler of the world. Though he casts the church’s work in consistently intimate terms of mutuality and “participation,” in Pannenberg’s vision for church proclamation the church shares in God’s reconciling activity only as a sign, as a pointer to God’s work to consummate his kingdom.

2.2.1. “Without Human Cooperation”: The Church as Sign If God establishes his eternal reign, the course of things is from above, not from below. In contrast to secular kingdoms, God’s kingdom comes without human cooperation. (Dan. 2.34)92 Throughout his writings on the kingdom, Pannenberg consistently stresses the importance of God’s initiating and completing activity over and against any inherent power or capacity of the church.93 God himself establishes his reign on earth, the work of reconciliation coming from above, not 91

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Mannermaa, “Theosis as a Subject of Finnish Luther Research,” p. 48. Similarly, Linman, “Little Christs for the World,” pp. 198–9. Lou Ann Trost argues similarly from the perspective of the natural sciences, “If the involvement of God in the world is the gift of God’s very self in creation, redemption and sanctification, it is Christ who dwells in us and indwells all of creation. This is the critical insight of Luther that has recently been rediscovered and emphasized in the work of Finnish Luther scholars” (Lou Ann Trost, “Theology’s Need for a New Interpretation of Nature: Correlate to the Doctrine of Grace,” Dialog 46, no. 3 [Fall 2007], p. 252. Emphasis mine). Pannenberg, ST3, p. 35. For example, Pannenberg, Theology and the Kingdom of God, pp. 52, 174; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Reich Gottes, Kirche und Gesellschaft in der Sicht systematischer Theologie (1982),” in Beiträge zur Ethik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004), p. 26; Pannenberg, Grundlagen der Ethik, p. 74.

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below. Hence, he describes the church primarily as “sign” (Zeichen) and “tool” (Werkzug). The church’s existence “only as an anticipatory sign of the future of the reign of God” is, Pannenberg contends, an implication of God’s certain consummation of the kingdom.94 The church cannot “transform the world into the kingdom of God” or “hasten the actualizing of the kingdom” in world history.95 As a “sign” and “tool” of the kingdom, the existence and ministry of the church should gesture beyond itself to God’s reconciling activity, into which the church has been inserted through her ecstatic constitution in the Spirit. Pannenberg’s description of the Eucharist is a telling example of this emphasis. On his view, the church fulfills her function as a “sign and a pointer” to the kingdom and, importantly, to the lack of its full presence today most readily in the eucharistic celebration of the Lord’s Supper: “Now the Lord’s Supper is a significatory action. Hence the church has its reality primarily on the level of a sign. It is not found in the first instance in itself. . . . It is constituted by the significatory action of the Supper of Jesus.”96 It is difficult, then, to read Pannenberg’s account and not describe the church’s work as “derivative” or “secondary” to God’s activity, that God is the “primary actor” in the drama and the human participants are somehow secondary, or that they “follow” behind. This description would not be surprising considering Pannenberg’s emphasis elsewhere on the “limited” nature of human action, that human action is overruled by divine providence and thus “constituted in another sphere that precedes all action.”97 But descriptions like “derivative” or “secondary” fail to adequately depict Pannenberg’s vision for the church’s participation. We gain a better view only when the commerce and communion between divine and human activity—such as the church’s participation in God’s reconciling work— are interpreted in the light of Pannenberg’s view of the true Infinite. According to that formulation, divine action is simply of another character than finite action. God’s power, and thus his action, “does not share in the genus ‘power’ as finite things do”; therefore, God’s action to reconcile the world to himself is genuinely his action, but creatures may participate in it in the Spirit.98 However, Pannenberg’s exposition of the church’s participation does not explicitly draw on divine infinity and its implications for the character of God’s action and the patterns of encounter there generated. Instead, his pneumatological account of the church’s participation draws on a view of 94 95 96 97 98

Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 51–2. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 48. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 432. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 202. Shults, Postfoundationalist Task of Theology, p. 101.

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the Eucharist in which the thing signified in the Supper (Christ himself and with him God’s rule) is itself present. Pannenberg explains: Hence Christ’s bread saying denotes the presence of the thing signified in the sign. In the bread, for which only the word “this” stands in the saying, Jesus Christ himself, and with him God’s rule, is present, but not in the same way that he comes into the bread as a supernatural substance (impanation), rather in such a way that what is signified is there in the sign as an indication of its presence. . . . The sign is filled and consumed by the presence of the thing signified as it is distributed and eaten.99 Along the same lines, in that the church proclaims the gospel of Jesus Christ and his rule, Christ and God’s rule are present in the proclamation itself. The proclamation of the church is not efficacious because of the church’s inherent capacity or power; rather, the message itself, its content, is filled with the Holy Spirit. In virtue of its content, the church’s witness is Spirit-filled, for the Spirit inheres in the event itself and so in its proclamation the Spirit goes forth. The church’s proclamation “does not give radiance to the saving event. It simply spreads abroad the radiance that shines from Christ’s own glory” and “thus imparts the life-giving Sprit of God who consummates the event of the resurrection of the Crucified which is the content of the kerygma.”100 The apostolic message, then, is constitutive for the Spirit’s glorifying work. Drawing upon Paul, who valuated his proclamation not as “the word of men” but “the word of God” (1 Thess. 2.13), Pannenberg stresses that proclamation is not primarily the work of the church but the work of the Spirit through whom the exalted Christ is present and speaking through them.101 By virtue of its content, Pannenberg argues, the gospel “involves life-giving power emanating from it,” and in this sense “Jesus Christ himself, the Kyrios, speaks and acts through the word of the Gospel.”102 Pannenberg’s critique of liberation theology, in which his emphasis on God’s reconciling activity runs close to the surface, is an instructive instance. For Pannenberg, liberation theology fails by uncritically appropriating aspects of Marxist ideology that put economic and political “liberation” in the foreground. Doing so depletes the emphasis that should be given to God’s consummating activity, not to the liberating activities of the church; it shifts the church’s perception of the efficacy of her work away from God’s 99 100

101 102

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 300. Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 249–50. Similarly, “The imparting of the Spirit takes place through the Risen Lord, apostolic proclamation, and belief in the gospel of the resurrection of the Crucified” (p. 318). Pannenberg, ST2, p. 449. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 459.

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activity to reconcile the world. In an earlier essay, Christianity in a Secularized World, Pannenberg contended that placing such heavy stress on liberating individuals and groups from economic and political oppressions could depict the liberation of the kingdom of God in “purely this worldly terms” and cast the church into a role reserved only for God.103 This earlier concern is clearly at work in Pannenberg’s mature theology in ST.104 In ST, Pannenberg takes up these earlier themes: “The inbreaking of God’s dominion with the work and history of Jesus . . . the consummation, too, would come only from God himself.”105 He secures this assertion with a Christological analogy. In the same manner that Jesus “humbly distinguished himself from the Father and the future of his kingdom,” so the church must distinguish itself from the future of God’s kingdom. Only as the church “renounces exclusive claims for its own specific form can it plainly be a sign of the universality of the kingdom of God and an instrument of the reconciliation” of humanity to God and to one another.106 Simply by existing as the body of Christ the church has a share in God’s plan of salvation revealed in Jesus Christ. Importantly, however, the church does so only as the reconciled community who is “taken up” into God’s activity to consummate the kingdom. Notice in the following reference how Pannenberg clearly subordinates the church to Christ by describing the church as a “sign” of humanity’s future in God’s kingdom: As the body of Christ the church is the eschatological people of God gathered out of all peoples, and it is thus a sign of reconciliation for a future unity of a renewed humanity in the kingdom of God. Jesus Christ is the revelation of the divine mystery of salvation because from his death and resurrection proceeds the reconciliation of humanity with a view to God’s kingdom. The church, however, is a sign of humanity’s future in God’s kingdom by its participation [Beteiligung] in the divine 103

104

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Wolfhart Pannenberg, Christianity in a Secularized World (trans. John Bowden; New York: Crossroad, 1989), p. 55. Pannenberg also faults liberation theology for its overly optimistic view of human nature, forgetting that “because of human sinfulness, no human society is possible without civil government. . . . But as soon as the condition of human sinfulness . . . is forgotten, or worse, attributed exclusively to the political opponent, the political activist no longer honors God and the kingdom as distinct from human efforts; and the vision of the kingdom gets distorted and perverted into the kingdom of one who puts himself in place of God (Pannenberg, “Providence, God and Eschatology,” p. 174). Pannenberg’s critique of Vatican II is illustrative as well: By ascribing the wrong kind of sacramentality to the church, one not intimately enough tied to activity of the Son and the Spirit, he believes Vatican II disorders the nature of God’s activity in consummating his kingdom (Pannenberg, ST3, p. 42). Pannenberg, ST3, p. 51. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 32.

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plan of salvation that is revealed in Jesus Christ, and it is participating in [beteiligt an] this plan as it exists as the body of Christ.107 The church functions as a sign precisely because Jesus Christ, not the church, is the mystery of salvation. While Pannenberg casts the church’s partnership with God’s turning to the world in consistently intimate terms, he doesn’t fail to repeatedly, and firmly, remind us of its nature as that which is “taken up”; it is from Jesus Christ that the reconciliation of humanity proceeds, and not from the church. Pannenberg is not arguing for church quietism; instead, he envisions a mode of churchly engagement with the world buttressed by the awareness that God’s activity alone will consummate the kingdom of God. An account of the church’s constitution as sign should not lead to withdrawal from society, he urges, nor should the church expect only a negligent influence upon it. To the contrary, “From the existence of Christians and the church there can and should flow forth reconciling effects for human society.”108 As the church lives its liturgical life, Pannenberg argues, it challenges “the claims of every political and judicial order, whether monarchial, oligarchical, or democratic, to embody the form of social life that is ultimately in keeping with human destiny.”109 However, Pannenberg stresses, the church’s reconciling effects should not indicate the present arrival or consummation of the kingdom but gesture, instead, to the provisionality of all earthly institutions and societies that are “far distant” from the definitive actualizing of God’s kingdom by God himself. Mutual acts of “benevolence” flowing from the church are “flash[es]” and “hint[s]” of the coming kingdom that indicate an eschatological horizon toward which the world’s attention should be directed.110 In her communal life, the church pictures a “vibrant and plausible” alternative to secular life characterized by “the joyful presence of the new life in Christ, of life that overcomes death.”111 107 108 109 110

111

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 44. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 432. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 52. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Morality, God, and Ethics,” in The Doctrine of God and Theological Ethics (ed. Alan J. Torrance and Michael Banner; London/New York: T&T Clark, 2006), p. 54; similarly, Wolfhart Pannenberg, “When Everything is Permitted,” First Things (February 1998), www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=3467 (accessed on October 24, 2007), p. 30; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Constructive and Critical Functions of Christian Eschatology,” Harvard Theological Review 77, no. 2 (1984), p. 124. Pannenberg’s reference here to “benevolence” runs very closely to his discussion in Grundlagen der Ethik in which he renders the New Testament command to love your neighbor as “goodwill” (Wohlwollen) (Pannenberg, Grundlagen der Ethik, p. 79). Similarly, Stephen H. Webb, “Eschatology and Politics,” in The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology (ed. Jerry L. Walls; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), p. 508. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “How to Think about Secularism,” First Things (June/July 1996), www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=3890 (accessed on October 15, 2007).

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Pannenberg’s language of “provisionality” is telling, for it reemphasizes the church’s function as “sign.” Reconciling effects flow from the church, but “Christian faith always retains awareness that all human ordering of social life in this world is provisional, far distant from the definitive actualizing of God’s kingdom by God himself.”112 Pannenberg does not urge the church to retreat from society but to pursue instead a biblically cautioned engagement, one fully aware of the absolute provisionality of all human institutions so that the church never loses her focus on the eschatological horizon of God’s kingdom. Referring to the potential for the restructuring of social society in line with Christian influences, Pannenberg states, “Even at best all earthly structuring of our common life can only be a copy and a provisional sign of this future. In its reality it will always be more or less broken by the power of sin that has not yet been fully overcome in our life together.”113 Pannenberg’s ecumenism grows out of his conviction that the church functions primarily as a sign and pointer to the kingdom. One aspect of the church’s participation in God’s plan of salvation is fulfilled simply by existing as the body of Christ, thus the unity of the church is critical in order for it to successfully function as a sign of the kingdom. The renewal of Christian unity is “absolutely mandatory not only for the authenticity of the churches in obeying the will and prayer of their Lord but also for their cultural plausibility of the Christian religion.”114 As a unified people under Christ, the church actually engages in the world through its worship and community. Though “the gospel of love cannot be expected to change the basic conditions of life in this world before the final advent of God’s kingdom” the communities of Christ should still remain locations in which the world encounters “models of reconciliation.”115 The renewed unity of the Christian community is, then, “a prerequisite for any renaissance of Christianity’s role in the public square” because of the manner in which it points—as a sign—to the future unity of mankind achieved in the kingdom.116 As a sign and witness to the kingdom, the presence of a unified worshiping community constitutes not a withdrawal from the world but a “profound

112 113

114

115 116

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 56. Emphasis mine. Similarly, Pannenberg, ST3, p. 586. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 479. Similarly, Pannenberg, “Reich Gottes, Kirche und Gesellschaft,” pp. 28–9; Pannenberg, Grundlagen der Ethik, p. 74; most recently, Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Task of Christian Eschatology,” in The Last Things: Biblical and Theological Perspectives on Eschatology (ed. Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), p. 6. Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Christianity and the West: Ambiguous Past, Uncertain Future,” First Things (December 1994), www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=3890 (accessed October 10, 2007), p. 4. Pannenberg, “Christianity and the West,” p. 4. Pannenberg, “Christianity and the West,” p. 4.

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type of engagement” with it.117 The same holds true for theology’s task. For Pannenberg, theology is an intensely public affair to be carried out in the marketplace of contemporary ideas and beliefs. The church is called to remain in the world, “where the struggle for truth occurs,” and there to carry out the task of giving a rational account of the truth of Christian faith.118 We should note the fruit of our study thus far. For Pannenberg, the church participates with God in his reconciling work, but (importantly) her sharing in that activity is given to her and cannot ultimately accomplish the ends of consummating God’s kingdom. A particularly illuminating example is Pannenberg’s construal of prayer. Through prayer, believers participate in God’s love for the world in a manner that should characterize all such participation, one both depending on and genuinely taking part in God’s reconciling work.

2.2.2. Prayer In prayer, Pannenberg explains, God grants believers a “share in establishing his kingdom in the world,” and in so doing believers are “summoned to cooperate [mitzuwirken] with God on his way to the future of his kingdom by their actions and their prayers.”119 After saying this, Pannenberg continues with an important expansion: They will not bring in the kingdom by what they do. Only God can do this, and only his providence knows how our various acts can be related to this goal and be effective. Thus in our awareness of the limits of human action prayer is the highest form of our participation [Beteiligung] in bringing in the kingdom of god, and prayer again is the stimulus and pointer for believers’ action.120 Pannenberg here reminds us that the church’s participation is a matter of grace. Although the church actively engages in its “partnership” with God, that partnership is received from God.121 117

118

119 120 121

Stanley J. Grenz, “Sacramental Spirituality, Ecumenism, and Mission to the World: Foundational Motifs of Pannenberg’s Ecclesiology,” Mid-Stream 30, no. 1 (1991), p. 30. Stanley J. Grenz, “Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Quest for Ultimate Truth,” The Christian Century (1988), p. 798. For an early example of Pannenberg’s contention that theology’s role is to provide a “rational account of the truth of faith” see Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Faith and Reason (1966),” in Basic Questions in Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971), p. 53. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 210. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 210. Pannenberg’s choice of language is instructive. In saying, “God gives creatures a share in [beteiligt an . . . läßt] establishing his kingdom” (p. 209), Pannenberg affords believers a profound partnership, indeed an intense mutuality, while still retaining his emphasis that creaturely participation is given by God.

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For Pannenberg then, prayer, more than any other Christian action, aptly encapsulates the nature of church participation he envisions, and it surfaces the proper relationship between divine initiative and human spontaneity. In prayer, believers accept the “limits of human action,” and in so doing they put their full dependence on the one to whom their prayers are directed. Prayer, he explains, is not taken up by the believer but generated by God. Believers are not just taken up into the dynamic of God’s work by which they are filled through the Spirit of God. With participation [Teilhabe] in the filial relation they receive their own subjectivity before God that expresses itself as spontaneity in relation to the Father and hence also to all creaturely reality. Prayer is a particularly suitable form by which to express this divinely generated spontaneity. In it addressing God as Father stands closely related to intercession for others, so that the link between love of God and love of neighbor finds concrete manifestation in Christian prayer.122 Pannenberg here holds two affirmations together: (1) just as the work of reconciling the world to himself is properly God’s alone, so prayer is a form of “divinely generated spontaneity”—it can only be understood within the context of God’s action; (2) believers are given genuine (nonillusory) participation in that work. Prayer prevents the practice of neighborly love “from becoming simply our moral work”.123 The participation in which God gives humans a share is real, but Pannenberg wants to emphasize that this participation is one in which divine reconciling action is not lost; the divine initiative and power to complete his work must remain center stage. This depiction of the believer’s participation with God through prayer comes into view as well in the relationship between prayers of thanksgiving and petition: the still outstanding consummation of God’s kingdom is God’s work to do. As the church looks back in praise to what God has accomplished in Christ she, in turn, looks forward to what God has promised to do in consummating his kingdom. For Pannenberg, all of this is just as it should be. In the act of Christian prayer Pannenberg’s doctrine of God and the God-world relationship is axiomatic: the infinite God encounters finite creatures as the creator of their independent existence, not opposed to them in tyrannical, coercive power but according to his freedom and love. And there is no more telling instance in God’s economy than the Son’s willing self-distinction from the Father in his acceptance of death on the cross and of human finitude. But does Pannenberg’s account of Christian prayer give us a clear enough sense for how human moral responsibility flows from prayer? We might take 122 123

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 204. Emphasis mine. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 205.

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Barth, for example. Pannenberg is very much with Barth that prayer assigns “priority to God’s action,”124 but he appears to diverge from Barth on the relationship between prayer and ethical action. As we noted at the head of this section, Pannenberg is unwilling that his dogmatics take the ethical shape of Barth’s Church Dogmatics. Whereas Barth will affirm that prayer also necessarily entails “that there should be a corresponding willing, acting, and doing on man’s part,” Pannenberg simply will not.125 The most that Pannenberg seems willing to say is that “the link between love of God and love of neighbor finds concrete manifestation in Christian prayer.”126 Perhaps this should not be surprising considering, on Pannenberg’s view, the sense in which believers’ ecstatic existence “in Christ” generates a living, acting, and loving that is, on account of their real union with Christ, Christ living, acting, and loving through them. While not explicit in ST, Pannenberg has more recently made a similar move, saying that the “inclusion of our life and death in the Son’s relation of Jesus Christ to the Father” relates directly to ethics.127 We would be remiss to conclude our study of the church’s ecstatic participation in God’s action without drawing out the presence of divine faithfulness. As we have seen, Pannenberg emphasizes the divine reconciling activity as that which consummates the kingdom; consequent of this is the relationship between Christian hope and divine promise.

2.2.3. God’s Faithfulness and the Promise of Christian Hope God’s kingdom-consummating work, Pannenberg explains, frames Christian hope and defines it as essentially eschatological; it looks ahead to what God alone has promised to accomplish, and as such, it both includes and recasts “this worldly hopes.” Pannenberg’s account of Christian hope is linked to his formulation of the church as the community of faith who participates in God’s love of the world. Eschatological hope of a fulfillment of human life after death, however, does not exclude this worldly hopes but can orient and encourage them even though we must have a sober sense of the limits of what is attainable in the conditions of earthly life. . . . Eschatological hope 124

125

126 127

John Webster, Barth’s Moral Theology: Human Action in Barth’s Thought (London: T&T Clark, 1998), p. 93. Karl Barth, The Christian Life. Church Dogmatics IV/4. Lecture Fragments (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1981), p. 156. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 204. Emphasis mine. Pannenberg, Grundlagen der Ethik, p. 103.

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casts its light already on the present life and protects it from despair but also against an illusory overvaluing or even absolutizing of finite goals of hope.128 The salvation for which humanity longs—and hopes—argues Pannenberg, cannot be attained “on our own and by our own action” but “transcends all that is possible by what we do,” for it “base[s] itself only on him who gives life to the dead and being to what is not (Rom. 4:17; cf. 2 Cor. 1:9).” Because Christian hope directs itself not to human efforts but to the Reconciling One who will fulfill his promises, it also draws the one who hopes outside his or her own concerns and desires. As the Spirit’s ecstatic activity draws individuals outside themselves into Christ, so Christian hope, directing itself to God’s eschatological completion, “frees us from this imprisonment in self and lifts us above the self. Faith thus gives rise to a hope that is concerned not merely about one’s own well-being but is bound up with the cause of God in the world that has the salvation of all humanity as its goal and embraces the believers hope in this broad context.”129 We have noted the importance of divine faithfulness for Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation, and this course-setting doctrinal commitment does work for him here as well. He takes pains to indicate the necessary dependence Christian hope must have upon the identity of the one who promises: “the God of promise.” What could have been left implicit, he explicitly draws out for the rationale of emphasizing divine faithfulness for a Christian conception of God’s action. And, naturally enough, “trust in the God of promise necessarily includes recognition of his truthfulness and goodness, which Luther in his Liberty of the Christian called a matter of faith.”130 Referring to the historical self-understanding of the elected people of God, Pannenberg makes the same argument: With the power of the electing God the experience of election also presupposes his ongoing constancy or faithfulness if the elect, trusting in him, are to be sure of the goal of their election or of the promise that is linked to it. Thus a fellowship that views itself as elect is supremely interested in the reality and deity of the one who elects and in the steadfastness of the deity’s commitment to the elect. . . . The irrevocability of election rests on the unshakeable self-identity and faithfulness of the electing God.

128 129 130

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 181. Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 177, 179. Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 174, 191.

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God’s “ongoing constancy” to the elect points to his faithfulness in time and space. It is the “ ‘nevertheless’ of God’s faithfulness,” as Barth expresses it, which “triumphs in this sea of sin and misery.”131 By appealing to God’s eternal faithfulness, both to himself and to the elect, Pannenberg stresses again the importance of a properly ordered understanding of divine and human action. As the community which signs—points ahead to the work in which God himself will accomplish—the church’s most appropriate actions are prayer, hope, and the pursuit of Christian unity. In each activity the church enacts the appropriate dependence on God to consummate his kingdom. Praying, she yields herself to the faithful God who is at work to reconcile the world to himself. Hoping, the church looks ahead in faith to the faithful God whose promises are sure. Pursuing unity, the church enables herself to point toward the kingdom that God alone will consummate.

3. Conclusion This chapter began with a pregnant statement that is worth recalling: “By love, then, believers are taken up into the act of God’s own nature and operation and participate in the movement of his love for the world.”132 Pannenberg’s account of our active participation is funded by an “ecstatic” view of the Christian life in which the ontological constitution of believers is transformed through union in Christ. One way of looking at Pannenberg’s formulation is to see it as an effort to connect the two halves of 2 Cor. 5.18 with an ontologically transformative rendering of the believer’s union with Christ so that the source of “the ministry of reconciliation” given to the church is God’s own reconciling activity: “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ.” According to Pannenberg’s presentation in ST, because our understanding of God should be shaped primarily by God’s infinity—infinity that includes the finite without destroying its difference— the ministry of reconciliation given to the church should be understood as God’s ministry in which believers genuinely participate (just as v. 20 testifies, “God is making his appeal through us”). This is the unique character of divine action that marks Pannenberg’s account throughout. One way of viewing Pannenberg’s vision is to see it as consonant with historically Lutheran sensibilities. Gabriel Fackre’s comments are helpful here. Fackre identifies a distinction between Reformed and Lutheran theologies according to their emphasis either on God’s sovereignty “over” us (Reformed) or the divine “solidarity” in, with, and under us (Lutheran). 131

132

Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline (trans. G. T. Thomson; New York: Harper & Row, 1959), p. 80. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 184.

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He finds this distinction marking Lutheran and Reformed articulations across the entire doctrinal spectrum. In this case related to the Eucharist, Fackre contends: The Reformed stress on the divine sovereignty appears as an effort to avoid any tendency to domesticate deity, in this case in the sacramental means of grace, and that with an eye on what it perceived to be Lutheran tendencies. . . . Meanwhile, the Lutheran tradition was determined to assert the “haveability” of Christ, wary of those who so distanced the divine sovereignty from the givens that Christ was absent, not present in the Eucharist, and this with an eye on what it perceived to be Reformed tendencies.133 According to a distinctively Lutheran ethic that makes much of our solidarity with Christ, argues Fackre, believers “do not need to ‘work at’ loving, for love rises spontaneously from faith, as we are graced to be a veritable Christ to our neighbor.”134 Here the capax is writ large and doing a great deal of work, while in “typical” Reformed treatments of discipleship, the non capax takes precedence, the difference and distance between Christ and creatures receiving greater emphasis. To use Bonhoeffer’s words from his disagreement with Barth on the matter, Pannenberg finds the Word to be “haveable,” graspable.135 Viewed from this perspective, thinking the God-world relationship according to the true Infinite fits more neatly into Lutheran sensibilities than it does into Reformed. One might still worry, however, that accounts of the church’s life in action which trade heavily on the language of “participation”—no matter how carefully grounded in a mode of divine action such as that generated by Pannenberg’s view of God’s infinity—would undersell the priority of the first half of 2 Cor. 5.18, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ” and ultimately blunt the force of verse 20, in which God makes his appeal through us. In other words, does casting the Christian life as “participation” make it difficult to give a transparent account of God as the reconciling agent—as Pannenberg is intent on doing at every point in his doctrine of reconciliation? Put differently, Pannenberg wants to say that 133

134 135

Gabriel Fackre, “Affirmations and Admonitions: Lutheran and Reformed,” in The Gospel of Justification in Christ (ed. Wayne Stumme; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), p. 11. Fackre, “Affirmations and Admonitions,” p. 18. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Act and Being: Transcendental Philosophy and Ontology in Systematic Theology (ed. Wayne Whitson Floyd Jr.; trans. H. Martin Rumscheidt; Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, vol. 2; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), pp. 90–1. See also Paul Lehmann, “The Concreteness of Theology: Reflections on the Conversation Between Barth and Bonhoeffer,” in Footnotes to a Theology: The Karl Barth Colloquium of 1972 (ed. Martin Rumscheidt; Studies of Religion in Canada, 1974).

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divine action is qualitatively different according to divine infinity, but does an account of participation such as his provide the dogmatic resources for making this not only plain but convincing? Or is Pannenberg’s account of churchly action as participation so dependent (at a basic level) on the conceptual schema that underlies ST that it makes giving a scripturally thick description of churchly activity difficult within the doctrine of the church? Likely the best way to read Pannenberg on this count is to interpret his presentation of the church’s mission as one intimately wedded to the church’s function as “sign” and into which believers are inserted through baptism. As Pannenberg explains it: Fellowship with Jesus makes them members of the church because they are called like Jesus to be witnesses to the reign of God, which in the provisional form of a sign finds expression in the fellowship of his disciples. Yet to represent this fact is the function no longer of baptism but of the Lord’s Supper.136 While Pannenberg’s presentation of Christian discipleship and of the church’s life in action may appear descriptively slender, he believes his account of the Lord’s Supper does the work for him: the presence of the Lord is living and active in that which is signified by the sign.137 Finally, I have shown up to this point that a distinguishing characteristic of Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation is his persistent effort to mark out the patterns of encounter between God’s action and human creatures. Thus far I have focused our attention on three specific instances of this “commerce and communion”: Christ’s death as representation and its inclusion of fallen creatures, the intrinsicist shape of the Spirit’s activity in reconciliation’s actualization, and the church’s life in action as mutual but dependent participation. In each case, Pannenberg’s intention has emerged to depict the character of divine activity so that it can be understood to 136 137

Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 282–3. Pannenberg may have something similar in mind to Niels Hans Gregerson’s “holist supervenience” proposal for God’s active presence in the Eucharist (Pannenberg references Gregerson’s portrayal related to “supervenience” in a 2001 article on the divine Spirit’s activity in creation as a “field” [Pannenberg, “God as Spirit,” p. 792]). Gregerson explains that participation in the Eucharist involves a divine promise in which “God invites any follower to actualize a new way of ‘seeing’ and ‘taking’ the world which resonates with the divine way of ‘seeing’ and ‘taking’ the world” through which a “future is opened for a ‘new self’ which ‘takes’ the future as an open space of divine disclosures. . . . ‘Special divine actions’ take place in the public world as a personal address rather than as a hidden influence behind the backs of human persons” (Niels Hans Gregerson, “God’s Public Traffic: Holist versus Physicalist Supervenience,” in The Human Person in Science and Theology [ed. Niels Henrik Gregerson, Williams B. Drees, and Ulf Görman; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000], pp. 182–3).

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include the actions of creatures, their particularity and independence not being set aside but transformed. On Pannenberg’s view, this is consonant with a trinitarian understanding of God’s infinity, or holiness. Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation issues an invitation to imagine God’s saving action in the world according to the conceptual framework of his doctrine of God, and this framework generates a particular texture of interaction between God and creatures. In light of this, it is at the point of Pannenberg’s effort to depict the church’s active role in God’s reconciling action that we are confronted with a question: Does Pannenberg’s principled distinction between dogmatics and ethics denude the capability of his presentation to portray the patterns of encounter which characterize the church’s participation? Said differently, does Pannenberg leave us with an ecclesiology in which it is alarmingly difficult to apprehend the actual, unique shape of the church’s life in the world—a necessary component in order to mark out this particular instance of the “commerce and communion” between God and his human creations? And might Pannenberg have had the resources at his disposal to justify such expansion? These are important questions, and I return to them in the conclusion of this study after considering Pannenberg’s account of God’s work to “complete” reconciliation in the coming of the kingdom. Here more than anywhere, the God-world relationship Pannenberg establishes in his view of divine infinity evidences an incredible tolerance to the risks of not distinguishing Creator from creature. But, Pannenberg invites us to consider, God simply is this kind of God, a God whose holiness (infinity) distinguishes him from everything finite while not setting those finite entities outside himself (the antithesis between the two). In the following chapter, the outworking of this God-world relation is brought to its most intensive point: the completion of reconciliation as the participation of creatures in God’s eternal life of fellowship. It is there we now turn.

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4 the completion of reconciliation

“Karamazov!” cried Kolya, “can it really be true as religion says, that we shall all rise from the dead, and come to life, and see one another again, and everyone, and Ilyushechka?” “Certainly we shall rise, certainly we shall see and gladly, joyfully tell one another all that has been,” Alyosha replied, half laughing, half in ecstasy. “Ah, how good that will be!” —Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

For Pannenberg, as it is for Dostoevsky’s Alyosha, the resurrection and the bringing together of all things in the kingdom of God is an occasion for unremitting joy and the “epitome of Christian hope.” Having been reconciled by Christ, brought into fellowship with God through the Spirit, and given a share in God’s turning to the world in love, it is only with the coming of God’s eternity into time that the final reconciliation of creatures is completed. It is to that final phase of Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation to which we give our attention here. Christian theology traditionally held that God will bring an end to the world and its history when the risen Christ returns to raise the dead (either all or only those destined for eternal life in Christ), judge, and receive those united to Christ. As these views became increasingly unpalatable to enlightened minds during the modern period and especially since the eighteenth century, some Christian theologians offered new eschatological interpretations and reconceived the meaning of God’s kingdom. Following Kant’s interpretation of religion’s “purpose” as “that which makes man better,”1 in some cases the kingdom of God was secularized to mean the divine “education of mankind” (G. E. Lessing). For others, Jesus’ proclamation was moralized, and the 1

Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone (trans. Theodore M. Greene and Hoyt H. Hudson; New York: Harper & Row, 1960), p. 102.

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kingdom of God was thus understood as realized in the church, the “highest good of Christian ethical action” (F. D. E. Schleiermacher and A. Ritschl).2 Against moralizing reinterpretations of the kingdom, Pannenberg locates himself within the stream of twentieth-century theologians following the protest of Ritschl’s son-in-law Johannes Weiß, who declared, “The actualization of the Kingdom of God is not a matter of human initiative, but entirely a matter of God’s initiative,”3 and as we saw in the previous chapter, Pannenberg registers the same insistence: “In contrast to secular kingdoms, God’s kingdom comes without human cooperation.”4 In the course of our study we have observed that a particular stress on divine action is characteristic of Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation. The previous chapter explored the ways his presentation of the church’s mission and proclamation stresses the place of God’s initiating and completing activity over and against an inherent ecclesial power or capacity. Keeping with this stress, in Pannenberg’s dogmatic approach to the doctrine of last things he expands upon God’s triune activity, which brings the kingdom of God into time and consummates his rule over creation. Toward these ends, the final chapter of Pannenberg’s dogmatics, chapter 15— “The Consummation of Creation in the Kingdom of God,” unfolds in five sections. In the first, “The Theme of Eschatology,” Pannenberg outlines the methodological commitments governing the doctrine’s dogmatic form. Insisting that Christian eschatology should be characterized by divine action, not by morality or human achievement, he fills this out with a rehearsal of his long-standing future-oriented ontology.5 Reality is for Pannenberg temporal, and this means that the true nature of things, their essence, is determined when God’s eternity comes into time and brings temporal history to its end or fulfillment. The “totality” (Ganzheit) of life is manifested only by the eschatological future which finally completes it. With the coming of God’s kingdom, mediated by the return of Christ, God’s eternity comes into time and brings history to an end. It is only then, with the culmination of creation in the kingdom of God, Pannenberg contends, that human “totality” is finally reached and the true essence of both history and individual lives is decided. In doing so Pannenberg casts the temporal perception of being prior to the eschatological future as “anticipation.” By 2

3

4 5

Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Modernity, History, and Eschatology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology (ed. Jerry L. Walls; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), pp. 494–7. Johannes Weiß, Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God (trans. Richard Hyde Hiers and David Larrimore Holland; London: SCM Press, 1971; Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1892), p. 132. Emphasis Weiß. Albert Schweitzer also drew on Weiß’ work: Albert Schweitzer, The Quest for the Historical Jesus (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1906 [reprint 2001]). Pannenberg, ST3, p. 35. Similarly, p. 530. See Chapter 2, Section 2.3.

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rehearsing here the outlines of his futurist ontology Pannenberg hopes to secure an outlook on the kingdom in which its dependence on God’s future action receives pride of place. In the second and third sections, “Death and Resurrection” and “The Kingdom of God and the End of Time,” he addresses the two categories, or aspects, of the doctrine: individual eschatology and social eschatology, respectively. Through his explication of the two, it becomes apparent that Pannenberg’s desire is to overcome their frequent separation in the postEnlightenment era and demonstrate how individual and universal destinies are realized together. In the later portion of section 3, Pannenberg’s contention that the relationship between time and eternity is the crucial problem of eschatology signals a transition into section 4, “Judgment and the Return of Christ.” There Pannenberg marks out the Spirit’s glorifying work related to Christ’s return and the resurrection, judgment, and transfiguration of believers. In the fifth section, “The Justification of God by the Spirit,” Pannenberg brings his dogmatics to a close with theodicy, the consummation of creation, and reconciliation’s completion. God’s love takes center stage here, and Pannenberg makes plain the important connections between the doctrine of God and reconciliation’s completion. What began in chapter 11 as an expansion upon the “anticipation” of God’s reconciliation in the Christ-event now concludes as its final “completion” (Vollendung) in the eschaton.6

6

Pannenberg has devoted (relatively) few of his works specifically to the doctrine of eschatology. The most important of which for seeing its development are the following: Pannenberg, “Constructive and Critical Functions,” and Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Can Christianity Do without an Eschatology?,” in The Christian Hope (ed. George B. Caird et al.; London: SPCK, 1970). More recently, Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Resurrection: The Ultimate Hope,” in Ancient and Postmodern Christianity: Paleo-Orthodoxy in the 21st Century (ed. Kenneth Tanner and Christopher A. Hall; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 254–62; Wolfhart Pannenberg, Wege zu einer trinitarischen Eschatologie: Ansprachen anlässlich des Festaktes zur Feier des 75. Geburtstages von Wolfhart Pannenberg durch die Evangelisch-Theologische Fakultät der LudwigMaximilians-Universität (München: Herbert Utz Verlag, 2004), pp. 23–6; Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Die Aufgabe christlicher Eschatologie (1995),” in Beiträge zur Systematischen Theologie, Band 2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), pp. 271–82. The most concise encapsulation of his mature doctrine can be found in Pannenberg, “The Task of Christian Eschatology,” pp. 1–13. Though Pannenberg has given relatively little specific attention to the doctrine of last things his theological vision is pervasively eschatological, and this can be seen in various writings prior to ST: for example, Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Eschatology and the Experience of Meaning,” in The Idea of God and Human Freedom (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1973); Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Significance of Eschatology for an Understanding of the Apostolicity and Catholicity of the Church,” in The Church (trans. Keith Crim; Philadelphia:

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The present chapter brings our exposition of Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation to a close with a careful reading of chapter 15. As it has been the case throughout, the study is informed by a thematic interest in the character of divine action. In part 2, this interest leads to focused attention on the appropriation of divine action, specifically the Spirit’s work of consummation as glorification and transfiguration. In part 3, I will unpack the content of completed reconciliation from the human side, something postponed to this point. In concluding the chapter I will attend to the relationship between Pannenberg’s doctrine of God, set forth in the final chapter of ST1, and the completion phase of his doctrine of reconciliation. I do so because Pannenberg himself forms an intimate dogmatic association between the two, a connection we have seen throughout our study. At the end of ST1 he concludes the doctrine of God by indicating the necessary connection between it and the doctrine of the final consummation, saying, “Only with the consummation of the world in the kingdom of God does God’s love reach its goal and the doctrine of God reach its conclusion. . . . To this extent Christian dogmatics in every part is the doctrine of God.”7 Specifically related to the shape of Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation, his account of the divine love and the attending implications for the relationship between the immanent and economic Trinity will also mean that the dogmatic relationship between the doctrine of God and the final consummation will be illuminating for our study. As he explains, the entire course of systematic theology is meant to “offer a more nuanced understanding that God is love”; therefore, it is only at the end of that account, in eschatology, that we can finally speak conclusively about divine love as it is expressed in the economy of salvation.8 Before turning to Pannenberg’s vision for the Spirit’s work and the content given to completed reconciliation, we should begin where we left off the previous chapter: Christian hope. Postponing our exploration of the Spirit’s work to glorify and transform believers until after this discussion retrains our attention onto Pannenberg’s commitment to divine faithfulness as the central thread of the doctrine of reconciliation, and it provides entry into this chapter by pointing out the significance he affords to God’s faithfulness for establishing eschatological statements (focused here as “promise”). Drawing out the place of faithfulness in Pannenberg’s eschatology leads us into a closer investigation of the Spirit’s activity; for Pannenberg, God’s eschatological promises have a personal face: the Spirit.

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Westminster Press, 1983); Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Future and Unity of Mankind,” in Ethics (trans. Keith Crim; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1981). Pannenberg, ST1, p. 447. Cf. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 630. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 448.

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1. The Promise of God’s Faithfulness In the previous chapter we took notice of Pannenberg’s insistence that understanding the church’s role in the consummation of the kingdom must be shaped by a particular account of divine action. God alone will be shown to consummate his kingdom—without human cooperation—and Pannenberg finds prayer the most fitting form of human participation in God’s turning in love to the world. In prayer, believers accept the “limits of human action,” and in so doing they put their full dependence on the one to whom their prayers are directed. The implications for Pannenberg’s account of Christian hope were immediately apparent. As the praying church looks back in praise to what God accomplished in Christ, she in turn looks forward to what God has promised to do in consummating his kingdom (praise and petition). God’s work to consummate his kingdom therefore secures Christian hope and protects it from despair by warning it against putting dependence in human efforts. God’s kingdomconsummating work frames and defines Christian hope as essentially eschatological; it looks ahead to what God has promised to accomplish, and as such, it both includes and recasts “this worldly hopes.” Hope then, on Pannenberg’s understanding, is fundamentally dependent on God’s faithfulness as demonstrated in his making and keeping promises. In chapter 15 of ST3, Pannenberg again picks up this emphasis on the manner of establishing eschatological statements. In the first subsection of chapter 15, “Eschatology and God’s Lordship,” Pannenberg argues that restoring eschatology’s focus on God’s coming lordship in the kingdom of God requires a future-oriented ontology in which the future affords determinative, ontological power. With the nature of eschatological statements in hand he addresses the manner in which these statements are made in the second subsection, “The Way to Establish Eschatological Statements.” He does so in terms of divine faithfulness focused here as promise. This subsection should not be overlooked as only a preparatory methodological move. Pannenberg explains that his intentions for this subsection are to provide an answer to the question of how Christian doctrine can do justice to “the constitutive significance of eschatology for Christian theology.”9 Seen in this light, his proposal that eschatological statements must ultimately be established by divine promise has wide-reaching significance not only for the doctrine of final culmination but his theological vision in its entirety. As we see in the following discussion, Pannenberg’s explication of promise as the foundation for eschatological statements points beyond the immediate content to his vision for human destiny, the work of the Spirit, and the completion of reconciliation as well. 9


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Pannenberg praises Karl Barth for “expound[ing] afresh the eschatological message of the lordship of God” as one that speaks to the concerns of people today and finds this in keeping with Weiß’s rediscovery of the basic significance of an apocalyptically oriented expectation of God’s lordship.10 On Pannenberg’s reading, however, Barth failed by downplaying temporal futurity. “Concentration on the constitutive reality of God in relation to the present” in Barth’s thought “replaced biblical eschatology of the future” and led to a complete loss of the present “tension relative to the future consummation.” Pannenberg urges instead that Christian eschatology must retain its stress on the future nature of God’s kingdom principally because of “its relevance for the understanding of God, for our own present, and for the presence of God with us.”11 With the perceived limitations of Barth’s proposal in mind and toward restoring the future reality of biblical eschatology Pannenberg charts a way forward through the biblical theme of divine promise. Pannenberg has long argued that historical events of God’s promisemaking and promise-keeping have great importance for Christian theology, both in its conception of history and for the doctrine of revelation. His early monograph Revelation as History attempted to recover a commitment to God’s self-communication through historical events over against Bultmann and Barth’s ahistoricism. According to the doctrine of revelation Pannenberg espouses there, God’s revelation is indirect rather than direct, “brought about by means of the historical acts of God.”12 On this view history becomes theology’s “most comprehensive horizon.”13 God’s promise-making and promise-keeping are an integral part of this formulation; history arises because “God makes promises and fulfils these promises. History is an event so suspended in tension between promise and fulfilment that through the promise it is irreversibly pointed toward the goal of future fulfilment.”14 Pannenberg believes that the connection between promise and fulfillment acted as a norm for the development of Israel’s historical consciousness and for the growth of humanity’s historical consciousness in general.15 Within the framework of promise and fulfillment, God indirectly reveals himself

10 11 12 13

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Pannenberg, ST3, p. 536. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 537. Pannenberg et al., Revelation as History, p. 125. Pannenberg, “Redemptive Event,” p. 15. Taylor summarizes nicely: “God’s revelation is not an original or self-grounding address, but is the series of God’s actions in the world that give form and content to a preexisting inchoate knowledge of divine reality” (Taylor, Triune God, p. 197. Similarly, Gilbertson, God and History, p. 12). Pannenberg, “Redemptive Event,” p. 18, see also pp. 75–6; similarly, Pannenberg et al., Revelation as History, p. 153. Pannenberg, “Biblical Understanding,” p. 13.

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as faithful through events of his promise-keeping. “God is faithful,” Pannenberg explained in an early essay, and because of this he always and unfailingly holds firm—however new and unforeseeable his present activity may be—to his earlier principles. He holds firm (hält . . . fest) to man as his creation and to Israel as his people. The faithfulness of God forms the basis in the Bible of the continuity of history.16 The Hebrew people’s historical consciousness—that God is faithful to his promises—was lost on the Greeks, whose historical awareness was guided, Pannenberg finds, “by the idea, found everywhere in the ancient world, of an inescapable connection between act and consequence.”17 Among the Greeks and Romans the perception of connections between historical events and their progression through time was divorced from the constancy of God’s faithfulness and seen as the simple consequence of human actions. Though the Greek conception of acts and their consequences was not completely absent from what Pannenberg interprets as the “Israelite understanding of history,” for the Hebrew people the consequences arising from human acts was “subordinated to the action of the God who elects and is faithful to his choices.”18 Pannenberg’s dependence on the concept of God’s promise-keeping emerges with undiminished clarity in ST.19 In the doctrine of God (chapter 7), Pannenberg finds connections between the faithfulness of God seen in historical events and how the unity of God’s being is conceived. “God’s unity is not merely the presupposition of his revelatory action,” he writes, “but also its content.” God’s disclosure to Moses as “I will be who I will be” (Exod. 3.14) is significant for Pannenberg: The identity here [referring to Exod. 3.14] is not the timeless identity of a concept of being but the self-identity of the truth of God which is faithfulness in historical action demonstrated by its holiness, goodness, patience, righteousness, and wisdom. . . . This takes us beyond the initially abstract idea of God’s unity as a separate

16 17 18

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Pannenberg, “Biblical Understanding,” p. 12. Pannenberg, ATP, p. 495. Pannenberg notes Anaximander and Herodotus as examples. Pannenberg, ATP, p. 495. Pannenberg directs the reader to K. Koch, “Is There a Doctrine of Retribution in the Old Testament?,” in Theodicy in the Old Testament (ed. James Crenshaw; Philadelphia: Augsburg Fortress Press, 1983), pp. 57–88; and Gerhard von Rad, Wisdom in Israel (Nashville: Abingdon, 1972), pp. 124–39. This is despite the fact that in ST he offers a considerably more complex account of the biblical concept of revelation while remaining committed to the importance of revelation through historical events (Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 191–208, 230–57).

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reality which is in mere opposition to the plurality of other gods and the world.20 Pannenberg’s account of faith is another instance in which divine “promise” receives dogmatic significance. For Pannenberg, the language of promise, like faith, links the “already” of the present to the “not-yet” of God’s coming kingdom and secures the foundation of faith’s eschatological hope in the character of God. It is this latter aspect that Pannenberg finds downplayed in Karl Rahner’s emphasis on anthropological grounds for hope. Related to “promise” and “faith,” Pannenberg follows Luther: “Luther explained the relation of faith in God, by way of the concept of promise, to the concrete object and content of faith. Grasping the promise of God and trust in God belong inseparably together. Believers trust God as they rely on these promises.”21 In turn, the ground of such fiducia is found in the character and reality of the promise-keeping God who is “unrestrictedly trustworthy.”22 According to Pannenberg’s reading of Rahner, Rahner’s eschatology loses the critical link between faith as trust in God and God’s promises for gaining certainty of the final consummation of human existence.23 Instead, Rahner develops his concept of human hope based on anthropological considerations. The problem with such dependence on anthropological considerations is that these formulations cannot, of themselves, provide assurance regarding the final consummation. Pannenberg argues instead that anthropological arguments and considerations, though important, must be taken up into the biblical notion of faith as trust in God and his promises. Rahner’s account depletes this emphasis by arguing that one can have certainty because “the saving future of essential human perfection that is now hidden already became present reality in Jesus Christ, so that we can ‘read it off’ him.”24 Transitioning from general anthropological considerations to the person of Jesus Christ misses some “essential mediating links.” So Pannenberg argues: It is not just a matter of a transposition or extrapolation of the implicit self-knowledge that is part of our situation as historical beings into the future of consummated salvation but rather of faith’s certainty of participation in salvation as this is constituted by the irruption of the future of the coming God into the present—a participation that will undoubtedly reach fulfillment only in the future of God but that believers already have assurance of in the present.25 20 21 22 23

24 25

Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 444–5. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 128; cf. p. 144. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 161. Also, pp. 162, 191. Cf. Karl Rahner, Theological Investigations: More Recent Writings (trans. Kevin Smith; vol. 4; London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1966), pp. 323–4. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 543. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 545.

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Pannenberg contends that the concept of promise is a more sure foundation for the Christian assurance of hope; it more effectively links the already and the not-yet of the kingdom of God while respecting the integrity of the present. The promises of God “put the human present, with all the pain of its incompleteness and failure, in the light of the future of God that comes to us as our salvation.” In addition, “The concept of promise links our present, which needs salvation, to God’s future, but at the same time keeps them apart. For the promise is, as such, different from the consummation that is promised.”26 Similar to how he argues that anthropological considerations are taken up into theological accounts of faith and hope, Pannenberg contends for the same concerning eschatological statements. Eschatological statements are bound up with anthropological arguments and considerations, but they must be taken up into and ultimately receive their form from the biblical witness to divine promise. Anthropology likewise establishes a human orientation to eschatological fulfillment, but along the same lines of his critique of Rahner, Pannenberg conceives their relationship in such a way that anthropological arguments are taken up into the theological and therein given their form. We look first at the role Pannenberg affords to the concept of divine promise, then to its relationship to anthropological formulations. By grounding Christian eschatology on divine promise Pannenberg believes a necessary reference to divine action is retained: “Eschatological hope can rest only on God himself . . . God’s own promise to judge and to save.”27 This means, in turn, that focus is again placed both on the divine action to consummate his rule and on the character of the one who acts as faithful: “The identity of the one who makes the promise guarantees its fulfillment.”28 As statements which have the character of promise eschatological statements are related to God’s future action: [Eschatological statements] relate to a future divine action that exceeds all human ideas but that still relates to our present existence with its incompleteness and in opposition to all that corruption and perversion of our human destiny. The eschatological hope of the Bible, trusting in the righteousness and faithfulness of God, is oriented to a future end of his ways with his creation and his people.29 Yet, the importance of anthropological arguments for Christian eschatology is not discarded. For example, Pannenberg argues that anthropology is “the 26

27 28 29

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 545. Emphasis mine. Pannenberg’s discussion of Christian hope follows the same pattern (Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 174–7). Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 539–40. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 541. Emphasis mine. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 550.

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soil on which we can argue for the universality of the Christian eschatological hope” and grants an important place to the anthropological argument that persons are oriented toward a final consummation of their identity: “Showing the orientation of creatures to the divine completion of creation is . . . a condition of understanding traditional promises as rightly the promises of God.”30 In a world in which God’s existence is debatable, we simply cannot contend with certainty that human history will be brought to completion by God. God’s reality cannot be simply asserted as “an assured result on which to base eschatology.” Rather, in a world in which God’s reality is debatable, anthropology offers a basis upon which to argue for the validity, and truthfulness, of eschatological statements. Because God created the universe, his promises will stand in a positive relationship with the “deepest yearnings of human beings and the world to which they refer.”31 Pannenberg’s argument here could easily be misconstrued. It might appear that he wants to utilize anthropological arguments as a foundation for eschatological statements by establishing a universal awareness of the human orientation toward fulfillment. When read closely, however, Pannenberg’s argument moves in a different direction. Anthropological considerations are not allowed center stage; instead, the anthropological statements that articulate a human orientation for fulfillment are “taken up” and receive their explanation through dogmatic, theological reasoning about divine promise (i.e., faithfulness).32 Anthropological arguments and consideration are clearly important within Pannenberg’s thought (e.g., What is Man?, ATP), but Pannenberg does not allow them to carry determinative force for his conceptions in ST. Brief consideration of Pannenberg’s method on this point might enable us to further draw out the relationship between promise and eschatology and therefore divine faithfulness and reconciliation’s completion. According to LeRon Shults, Pannenberg’s use of anthropological and systematic-theological arguments illustrates a methodological tendency that Shults terms “asymmetric bipolar relational unity.”33 Shults describes this 30 31 32

33

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 541. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 541. Pannenberg makes the same move in The Task of Eschatology, saying, “Eschatological hope can only be based on God, not on human nature. . . . The application of terms like ‘promise’ and ‘hope’ presupposes some positive correspondence to the future to come to the present reality of our lives. Therefore, theology should not treat the emphasis on God’s promise, which gives reason for our hope, as if it were an alternative to the assumption of an anthropological basis of such hope” (Pannenberg, “The Task of Christian Eschatology,” p. 5). I am indebted to Iain Taylor for pointing this out. Shults, Postfoundationalist Task of Theology, pp. 203–11; Shults, “Theology, Science, and Relationality,” esp. pp. 813–18. While similar in some respects, I find Shults’s model more compelling than Nancey Murphy’s Lakatosian reconstruction because it seems to give greater explanatory power to Pannenberg’s intentions to be, first and

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“relationality” as entailing “a differentiated bipolarity, a clear asymmetry, and an actual relational unity” which occurs in a process of two distinct moments in Pannenberg’s methodology.34 The first moment is the “fundamental-theological,” which in this case is anthropology. He also terms this the “from below” perspective compared to the “from above.” The from above is the second “moment” in Pannenberg’s theological process that Shults calls the “systematic-theological.” While the “fundamental-theological” moment may come first in any given presentation, as it does here in chapter 15, which is related to anthropological arguments and Christian hope, the “systematic-theological” moment has “material primacy.”35 Because the “systematic-theological” has this “material primacy” and thus “provides a dominant guiding force” to the entire process, Shults emphasizes the asymmetry of the reciprocity. Pannenberg’s conception of the relation between the true Infinite and the finite creates the “bipolar relationality” of his method, in which the systematic-theological movement (from above) takes up into itself the fundamental-theological movement (from below) just as the true Infinite stands not opposed to the finite but transcends the antithesis between them. It is the idea of one thing being “negated, yet preserved, as it is elevated into something else”; for Pannenberg, anthropological science and theology are both embedded within a dynamically interactive field.36 The model he provides (Figure 1) is helpful for clarifying the unity of the two moments.37 In Figure 1 the two arrows indicate the bipolarity involved in the reciprocal relation between the systematic-theological and the fundamental-theological Systematic-theological moment

Fundamental-theological moment

Figure 1 Asymmetrical relationship between the “fundamental theological” and “systematic theological” moments in Pannenberg’s theology

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foremost, a dogmatic theologian for whom the doctrine of God has determinative significance (Nancey Murphy, “A Lakotosian Reconstruction of Pannenberg’s Program,” in Beginning with the End: God, Science, and Wolfhart Pannenberg (ed. Carol Rausch Albright and Joel Haugen; Chicago: Open Court, 1997], pp. 409–21). Shults, Postfoundationalist Task of Theology, p. 206. Shults, Postfoundationalist Task of Theology, p. 208. Shults, “Theology, Science, and Relationality,” p. 814. Shults, Postfoundationalist Task of Theology, p. 208.

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movements. The block arrow (pointing downward) represents the systematictheological movement, implying the “sublation as well as the illumination of the other movement,” while the line arrow (pointing upward) represents the fundamental-theological movement (anthropology in the case of our discussion). It is not that the anthropological has less integrity compared to the theological; rather, Shults explains, there is “a real coinherence” between the two such that theology and anthropology are held together “in a relational unity without denying the valid roles and integrity of either disciplinary endeavor.”38 Importantly, however, Pannenberg’s approach is asymmetrical: while the systematic-theological and anthropological movements are mutually conditioning, they don’t function at the same “level.” The from-above (systematic-theological) move “offers a trinitarian explanation of a ‘from below’ phenomenon that illustrates the implicitly religious dimension of human existence.”39 Returning to our discussion of promise and eschatological hope, Pannenberg indicates the methodological pattern when he writes that anthropological arguments are critical for eschatological claims, but they depend “finally on God’s reality and power, not ours.”40 The “underlying anthropological motifs,” Pannenberg argues, are not fully able to answer the “question as to the content of reality that we can ascribe to them as statements about the future.”41 In other words, establishing an anthropological foundation for eschatological longings is important, but the anthropological arguments are not sufficient in themselves; they must be filled out by, or “taken up” into, what he argues are the more elemental, basic, or controlling biblical concepts of divine promise and faithfulness. According to Pannenberg’s method of sublation, the from-above perspective, represented by systematic theology, takes up the from-below perspective, represented by anthropology.42 38 39 40 41 42

Shults, Postfoundationalist Task of Theology, pp. 210–11. Shults, Postfoundationalist Task of Theology, p. 211. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 541. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 550. See Shults, Postfoundationalist Task of Theology, pp. 203–11. An early example of this methodological trend comes in a lecture given in 1961: “Christian theology must avail itself of the language of philosophy, at least entering into critical dialogue with it, if it intends to give expression to the whole of reality. However, when philosophy asks about the whole of reality on the basis of the everyday experiences of reality, dogmatics asks this question only in such a way that it proceeds from the Christ-event and pursues its universal significance for reality. . . . In doing this, dogmatics must use philosophical ideas and concepts which it finds on hand, and those which it employs must be fundamentally transformed because and to the extent that the whole of reality appears in a new light from the standpoint of the Christ-event (Wolfhart Pannenberg, “What is a Dogmatic Statement?,” in Basic Questions in Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970), p. 201. Other early examples include Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Anthropology and the Question of God,” in The Idea of God and Human Freedom (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1973), pp. 91–3; Pannenberg, “Speaking about God,” pp. 106–15.

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FAITHFUL TO SAVE Divine promise

Universal, human hope for the future

Figure 2 Pannenberg’s asymmetrical method applied to divine promise and the universal, human hope for the future

Accordingly, we can plot the relation between divine promise and anthropological arguments as shown in Figure 2. In other words, we are made aware of the hope necessary for human constitution through the Christian theological category of divine faithfulness (God’s promise-making and promise-keeping). Three examples demonstrate this principle. First, regarding “hope,” in a review of David Tracy’s Pluralism and Ambiguity, Richard Bernstein is left wondering “what, if anything, is distinctive about the contribution of religion and theological discourse to our postmodern understanding of resistance and hope.” “What is the ‘more,’ ” Bernstein asks, “that is expressed in religions and religious discourse that is not to be found in other modes of experience and other types of discourse?”43 Pannenberg’s answer would be simple: divine faithfulness as God’s promise-making and promise-keeping makes Christian hope “ever greater” from otherworldly hopes. Hope exists outside of Christian faith and is given shape by various anthropological arguments, but a Christian theology of hope must demonstrate how the basic human needs for hope and consummation are taken up and therefore filled out by the theological concept of divine faithfulness. Because hope is ultimately grounded in divine faithfulness, Christians are, to take Gerhard Sauter’s phrase, “dared” to hope.44

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More recently Pannenberg says the same regarding dogmatics, biblical studies, and pastoral theology: “Each [aspect of data from human sciences, history, and natural sciences] must be reinterpreted when considered in its relation to God because the secular treatment of nature at large and of human nature abstracts from the relationship to God the creator” (Pannenberg, “Theology Examines Its Status and Methodology,” p. 7). R. J. Bernstein, “Radical Plurality, Fearful Ambiguity, and Engaged Hope,” Journal of Religion 69 (1989), p. 91. Quoted in Webster, Barth’s Moral Theology: Human Action in Barth’s Thought, p. 96. See, David Tracy, Pluralism and Ambiguity (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1988). Gerhard Sauter, What Dare We Hope? Reconsidering Eschatology (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999), p. ix.

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Second, we can further illustrate the asymmetrical relationship between Pannenberg’s trinitarian, doctrinal commitments and the fundamentalanthropological ones by looking at the relationship between individual and universal eschatology. While Pannenberg’s first moves related to the content and relation between individual and social eschatology take place in the anthropological register, he allows the anthropological arguments to be taken up by the trinitarian, theological ones.45 Anthropological arguments, for Pannenberg, bring to the surface the content of a generally shared human yearning for wholeness (“Insofar as the contents of eschatology are objects of promise, they have to stand in a positive relation to the nature and the deepest yearnings of human beings and the world to which they refer”), but the systematic, theological arguments carried out by a Christian dogmatics have the role of filling out the other. Both have their place within his relational methodology, but as Pannenberg explains, anthropological arguments (or scientific for that matter) are “elevated” into systematic, theological ones.46 As our third and last example, Pannenberg’s manner of relating anthropology to theology concerned here with the establishment of eschatological statements maps directly onto his later discussion on individual death and resurrection. The fundamental-theological move establishes the universal human condition, but it needs to be taken up by the systematic-theological move: “Only when we have rightly defined the anthropological significance of death theologically can we properly present the content of the Christian hope of resurrection.” The fundamental-theological “from below” (anthropology) is taken up into the theological “from above” such that the content of the considerations being taken up is not depleted. We can see that the place Pannenberg affords the anthropological claims is taken up by those of divine promise and faithfulness but not in such a way that the importance for the overall conception of the former is depleted. These examples should simply indicate from a different angle the importance of the biblical concepts of promise and faithfulness for Pannenberg’s eschatology. This discussion might also enable us to look back with greater clarity at Pannenberg’s conception of the Spirit’s work in creation and reconciliation according to field theory.47 Pannenberg drew from the findings of contemporary natural sciences related to field theory, but these findings were given theological content through exegetical, theological constructions. As Pannenberg draws to a close his delineation of promise as the form of establishing eschatological statements, he focuses his presentation on its most important point, as he often does, by reminding us that reconciliation 45

46 47

See Pannenberg, ATP, p. 21, for his explanation of how anthropological considerations “lead to” systematic-theological conclusions. Pannenberg, “Foreword,” p. xii. See above, Chapter 2, Section 2.2.

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with God is necessarily future orientated; it awaits a final completion. “Fellowship with Jesus Christ as the basis of Christian eschatology,” Pannenberg writes, “is more than just promise because it rests on an event of fulfillment that has taken place already. Nevertheless, this event is not complete.”48 Pannenberg argues that the reference to reconciliation’s future completion indicates the necessary role of promise in Christian theology. He also contends that it points to the role played by the Spirit. This is important, for in shifting attention here to the Spirit, Pannenberg puts forth his understanding of biblical promise as intensely personal; to speak of God’s promise is to speak of the Spirit as the divine person who will appropriate the work of final completion. We might say that for Pannenberg the Spirit is the personal face of God’s promise-making and promise-keeping. Pneumatology and eschatology thus belong together. We should not fail to miss the connections here to our earlier study of reconciliation’s actualization. In Chapter 2, we saw that the Spirit forms the link between reconciliation’s temporal anticipation and actualization. Salvation, Pannenberg explains, “has not yet been definitely actualized [realisiert] already for humanity merely by the mission of the Son. It will be so only when the work of the Spirit completes [vollendet] it.”49 In the same way that the Spirit retains the tension of reconciliation’s status as awaiting completion, the Spirit also holds together the tension between the present and future realities of the kingdom of God. This twofold function of the Spirit, Pannenberg argues, relates his work to the twofold form of eschatological hope, which on the one side aims at the totality of individual life and on the other side at the consummation of fellowship through peace and righteousness. The consummating [vollendend] work of the Spirit integrates these two aspects and in this way overcomes the antagonism between individuals and society that holds sway in this present world.50 Thus, the Spirit holds together the individual and corporate aspects of eschatology related to the kingdom of God because the Spirit’s redemptive work relates to individuals and society (as well as to the present and the future). In giving our attention now to the delineation of the Spirit as the agent of consummation, we will see the centrality of relationship between the present and future work of the Spirit for Pannenberg’s understanding of the final consummation. In this regard, his vocabulary of “completion” will prove illustrative of the character he gives to the Spirit’s activity. We will carry out our study by accounting for Pannenberg’s conception of the Spirit’s work in terms of its nature and content. This will orient us for a final section, in 48 49 50

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 550. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 551. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 552.

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which I explore Pannenberg’s vision for the content of completed reconciliation as participation in God’s triune life.

2. The Spirit as the Agent of Consummation Our study has shown that Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation marks out the process of God’s reconciling actions in time. The work of Christ for the reconciliation of the world is dealt with under the rubric of “anticipation”; its realization (Realisierung) by the Spirit is treated under the rubric of “actualization” together with the church’s proclamation in the Spirit’s power. Finally, in chapter 15, Pannenberg adumbrates the Spirit’s completion of reconciliation (another instance of Pannenberg’s penchant for detailing appropriations). We proceed first by exploring Pannenberg’s understanding of the nature of the Spirit’s activity and second it’s content.

2.1. The Nature of the Spirit’s Activity: Linking the Already and the Not-Yet Pannenberg appropriates the work of “completing” God’s reconciling activity to the person of the Spirit “to bear witness to, and to glorify, the Son and the work of the Son in the hearts of believers.”51 For Pannenberg, this conception of the Spirit’s eschatological activity is entirely in keeping with the nature of the Spirit’s relation to the Father and the Son within the immanent life of God. There, as Pannenberg understands it, the Spirit is the bond of unity between the Father and the Son. In keeping with his understanding of the Spirit’s relation to the Son and the Father within the eternal divine life, Pannenberg delineates the specific work of the Spirit in completing reconciliation at the consummation of history as “glorification.” Relating the third and final phase of the economy of salvation to the Holy Spirit seems to make sense only from the standpoint that we can also ascribe to the Holy Spirit, who as the Spirit of fellowship between the Father and the Son fulfills the unity of the Trinity, the eschatological participation of creation in the life of the Trinity by its glorification, the glorification of God by creatures and that of creatures by God being two sides of one and the same event.52 Before looking in some detail at the Spirit’s “glorifying” activity, we might delve further into Pannenberg’s understanding of the Spirit as the link, central to the overall conception, between the already and the not-yet. 51 52

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 551. Similarly, Pannenberg, ST2, p. 454. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 554.

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According to Pannenberg, as an eschatological gift to believers and the church, the Spirit “already governs the historical present of believers” and mediates the relation between the future and the present realities of the kingdom of God. As such, eschatology does not just have to do with the future consummation but “is also at work in our present by the Spirit.”53 Multiple implications arise from this, but at least three deserve mention. First, making “promise” a pneumatological reality strengthens the connection in ST between the doctrine of God and eschatology. Second, correlating the Spirit’s activity to the relationship between present and future reiterates Pannenberg’s conviction that theology must correctly parse the relationship between time and eternity to adequately speak of the character of divine action. “The distinctive interrelation of future and present, of eternity and time, of eschatology and pneumatology,” Pannenberg argues, “must be understood as a characteristic expression of the mode of divine working in salvation history and as an element of the consummation of creation by him.”54 Third, the future is not abstractly linked to the present through a concept of time or natural process but personally through the Spirit and his work.55 Toward expanding this point, Pannenberg’s vocabulary of “completion” illustrates the commitment that the Spirit is the person whose activity links the present to the future, the one whose work holds together the “tension” between the already and not-yet realities of God’s kingdom and salvation. In describing reconciliation’s temporal realization in the same terms as its future completion, Vollendung, Pannenberg registers a further, albeit more subtle, insistence that we understand the Spirit as the divine person whose being gifted to the church points ahead to the eschatological, consummating activity of the Spirit, whose present work must be understood in the light of its future activity and vice versa. One sees this insistence in Pannenberg’s use of language. He consistently renders the Spirit’s “completing” activity with Vollendung and its cognates, and he does so in such a way that it emphasizes the temporal nature of the Spirit’s activity. That Pannenberg would depict the Spirit’s end-time work as Vollendung is not at all surprising, but it is noteworthy, instructive even, that he also employs it to describe reconciliation’s temporal realization. This shows us something about the nature of the Spirit’s work on Pannenberg’s view; the Spirit completes reconciliation through the coming to faith and baptism of individuals, and yet the ultimate completion of reconciliation awaits the Spirit’s work in history’s culmination. In both cases the Spirit’s work is rendered with Vollendung. An example is helpful.

53 54 55

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 553. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 554. Similarly, Grenz, Reason for Hope, p. 260.

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When Pannenberg’s dogmatic focus shifts in chapter 11 from the Son’s work to accomplish reconciliation to the Spirit’s present activity, the heading reads, “The Completion [Vollendung] of Reconciliation in the Spirit.”56 Here Pannenberg argues that the Spirit’s work enables us through faith in Jesus Christ to accept our finitude before God, and this activity “completes [vollendet] our reconciliation before God.”57 “The reconciliation of the world has taken place in the death of Christ,” Pannenberg stresses, “even though it is completed [vollendet] only by the Spirit in believers.”58 Although Pannenberg describes reconciliation’s temporal realization and not its eschatological consummation, he still portrays it as Vollendung. Rendering both reconciliation’s final consummation and its temporal realization as Vollendung subtly indicates Pannenberg’s insistence that the Spirit holds together the tension between the already and the not-yet, the present and the future. A shift to “realisieren” in chapter 15 is a further indication of Pannenberg’s intention. He regularly employs “realisieren” when referring back to reconciliation’s fulfillment in the completed event of reconciliation in Christ (Erfüllungsgeschehen) and renders reconciliation’s eschatological completion with “vollenden.” It is worth quoting Pannenberg at length just to see his use of the terms all in one section: Fellowship with Jesus Christ as the basis of Christian eschatology is more than just promise because it rests on an event of fulfillment [Erfüllungsgeschehen] that has taken place already. Nevertheless, this event is not yet complete. It also carries with it a reference to a future completion [Vollendung] that we are not to regard as simply supplementing the salvation that is already guaranteed but that is constitutive also for the salvation that has come already in Jesus Christ and for its definitiveness, just as the future of God, contrary to our usual way of looking at things, is constitutive for what we now are and already have been. To this extent the element of promise still has a role in the gospel of Jesus Christ and in the Christian hope that rests on it, even if under altered conditions. This means however, that salvation has not yet been definitively actualized [realisiert] already for humanity merely by the mission of the Son. It will be so only with the arrival of the Spirit’s work of completion [sondern erst durch das Wirken des Geistes zur Vollendung kommt], the work of the Spirit being to bear witness to, and to glorify, the Son and the work of the Son in the hearts of believers.59

56 57 58 59

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 449. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 454. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 454. Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 550–1 (author’s translation).

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The work of the Spirit in the time prior to the consummation of history should be interpreted as a “proleptic manifestation” of the Spirit’s eschatological work which will transform believers for fellowship with God.60 The Spirit’s identification in scripture as “gift” is significant, Pannenberg argues, for it indicates a specific eschatological telos. On this basis, pneumatology and eschatology should be held tightly together because the work of consummation is ascribed to the Spirit as an end-time gift who “governs the historical present of believers.” While sin and death await their final destruction, the believer now has victory over them on account of the nature of the eschatological telos of the Spirit’s being gifted to the church. “The gift of the Spirit,” explains Pannenberg, “can have for the believer’s present the significance of an anticipation and pledge of future salvation only because the Spirit is also the power of God effecting future salvation itself.”61 The Spirit is the “pledge of hope beyond death whose fulfillment [Erfüllung]” has already broken into the present with Christ’s resurrection.62 Eschatology, then, “does not merely have to do with the future of consummation [Vollendung] that is still ahead,” Pannenberg concludes: [I]t is also at work in our present by the Spirit. Hence the presence of the Spirit means already the overcoming of sin and death. If sin and death are to be finally overcome only in the eschatological consummation [Vollendung], victory over them is already in process in the present work of the Spirit, and above all in his presence as a gift in believers.63 In describing reconciliation’s temporal realization in the same terms as its future completion, “Vollendung,” Pannenberg registers a further, albeit more subtle, insistence that we understand the Spirit as the divine person whose being gifted to the church points ahead to the Spirit’s eschatological, consummating activity. His present work, as pointed out before, must be understood in the light of its future activity and vise versa. The point is not clearly apparent in the English translation, in which “Vollendung” is variously rendered as “consummation” (ST3, pp. 552, 553, 555, 627, 642, 645), “fulfillment” (ST3, pp. 551, 627), or “completion” (ST3, pp. 551, 627). Differentiating the translation between “consummation” and “completion” provides some linguistic variety for the English reader because the terms carry the same basic meaning. Doing so, however, somewhat obscures for the English reader the connection Pannenberg intends to forge between the present and future aspects of the Spirit’s work, and the more subtle reference to the forward-looking reality inherent to Pannenberg’s use of “completion” 60 61 62 63

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 553. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 622. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 17. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 553. Similarly, pp. 637, 642, 645.

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in describing the present activity of the Spirit is lost. Had Pannenberg himself been searching for linguistic variety he could have employed a synonymous term such as “vollziehen.” However, he uses “vollziehen” instead in a parallel fashion with “realisieren” to indicate the temporal realizing, or coming to be, of reconciliation in the individual person.64 “Vollendung,” quite distinct from other terms, appears to stand apart as Pannenberg’s chosen idiom for describing what is uniquely characteristic of the Spirit’s activity in the world: a temporal “completion” of reconciliation that both points ahead to and guarantees (as gift) its ultimate “completion.”

2.2. The Content of the Spirit’s Activity: Glorification By emphasizing the Spirit’s eschatological activity—thereby infusing his doctrine of last things with a distinctive pneumatological flavor—Pannenberg sees himself correcting a deficiency in primitive Christian testimonies that downplayed the Spirit’s eschatological functions. The resurrection of believers, the judgment, and the believer’s transfiguration for fellowship with God are all activities Pannenberg argues should be attributed to the Spirit. If we think of the Spirit’s eschatological activity “as distinctively a work of glorification” (Verherrlichung), he contends, these distinct moments can be brought together. “The thought of glorification,” he writes, “links the new life of the resurrection to the moment of judgment that carries with it the transfiguration of this earthly life by means of the relation to God the Father and to the praise of God.”65 It is fitting that this work be appropriated to the Spirit as the source of life, faith, hope, and love; in all these He works “always already at the glorifying of God in his creation, and in his eschatological work this aspect will come to the fore in an overwhelming way, gathering together and transforming all else.”66 It is also in keeping with Pannenberg’s doctrine of God, specifically related to his understanding of the relationship between the immanent and economic Trinity, that he deems “glorification” to be an apt description of the Spirit’s eschatological movement. As we saw above, Pannenberg marks out the Spirit’s eschatological actions in correspondence with the eternal relations of the divine persons. On Pannenberg’s account, there exists an eternal mutuality within the divine life; the person of the Spirit fulfilling the unity of the Trinity as the bond of fellowship between the Father and the Son through their mutual self-distinction. The Spirit’s self-distinction is expressed through his glorification of the Son and in the Son also the Father. This 64

65 66

Pannenberg, ST2, p. 435. “Dazu gehört auch die Annahme der eigenen Endlichkeit vor Gott, die in der Taufe durch die Vergindung des eigenen Endlichkeit vor Gott, die in der Taufe durch die Verbindung des eigenen, künfuntigen Sterbens mit dem Tode Jesu vollzogen wird” (Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 2, p. 482. Emphasis mine). Pannenberg, ST3, p. 623. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 624.

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eternal mutuality within the divine life makes it entirely appropriate that “the eschatological participation of creation in the life of God by creatures and that of creatures by God” are “two sides of one and the same event.”67 The eschatological consummation will be mutual; the Spirit glorifies creatures toward fellowship with God, and creatures will glorify God by acknowledging and worshiping him as Creator. Pannenberg finds exegetical justification for this kind of trinitarian mutuality in John’s Gospel which he believes testifies to the mutual glorification between the Father and the Son. Referring here to the Gospel of John, Pannenberg writes: The Son has glorified the Father (17:4) by proclaiming his lordship. He now asks the Father to glorify him by reaccepting him into his original fellowship with the Father (v. 5). In this way, and by the participation of believers in the common glory of the Son and the Father (v. 22), the glorifying of the Father by the Son will be completed [Vollendung finden]. This event, however, is mediated by the work of the Spirit, who will glorify the Son.68 By grounding the Spirit’s eschatological activity within the eternally selfdistinguishing relations of the divine life, the specific moments of the Spirit’s activity (resurrection, judgment, and transfiguration) are delineated accordingly. Related to the resurrection of believers, Pannenberg’s rationale for the Spirit’s involvement arises from his assertion that the doctrines of creation and eschatology are linked pneumatologically. Romans 8.11 tells us that the Spirit’s indwelling in believers guarantees the resurrection of their mortal bodies by God just as the Spirit raised Jesus Christ from the dead. The Spirit should be conceived, then, as “the creative source of the resurrection life both in relation to the resurrection of Jesus and in relation to others.”69 Pannenberg relates the resurrection of believers to the Spirit’s role as the creative source of all life, and thus resurrection is dogmatically related to his doctrine of creation.70 Because of the Spirit’s work in creation, “It is not surprising, then, that the same Spirit should be thought of as also the source of the new and perfect life that is no longer separated from its divine origin but will be wholly permeated by the Spirit and remains related to him.”71 On this account, the immortality of the believer is justified pneumatologically rather than according to a Platonic concept of the “soul.” The eschatological 67 68

69 70 71

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 554. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 625 (translation amended; Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 3, p. 672). Pannenberg, ST3, p. 622. See Chapter 2, Sections 2.1 and 2.2. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 622. Similarly, Pannenberg, ATP, p. 526.

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life is one wholly permeated by the Spirit and will thus “be immortal by virtue of this indissoluble relation to the divine Spirit as the source of life” (an insight he draws from Paul [1 Cor. 15.42–6]).72 Pannenberg’s account of Christ’s return carries forward the same commitment to the Spirit’s involvement and the connection to Christ’s resurrection. The only difference between Christ’s resurrection and institution to divine sonship effected by the Spirit, argues Pannenberg, is “that at his coming again Jesus will no longer be a mere object of the Spirit’s creative dynamic, since the life of the risen Lord is already wholly permeated by the Spirit and radiates from him.”73 The inhering of the Spirit to the Son corresponds to the inhering of the Spirit in the believer, and in both cases participation in the divine life is the end result. Moving to Pannenberg’s view of the believer’s judgment and transfiguration (Verklarüng), we see that both are closely related to, and even controlled by, his concept of human “totality” (Ganzheit) as participation in the triune life. Related to judgment, based on 1 Cor. 15.50 Pannenberg argues that the Spirit’s eschatological work stands related to the final judgment because a change is required in order for mortal, finite creatures to enjoy participation in the divine life (“This mortal cannot without change acquire a share in immortality”). Looking at the tradition, Pannenberg finds the Spirit’s function as the organ of judgment “mostly overlooked” because it is not patently obvious in all biblical texts related to the final judgment. Still, Pannenberg argues that the Spirit is nonetheless present.74 Conceding that the biblical witness isn’t completely clear on how the Spirit’s activity informs our understanding of the judgment, Pannenberg argues that a dogmatic understanding of the Spirit’s work as “glorification” should fill out our concept of judgment as essentially pneumatological. From several apocryphal texts and 1 Cor. 3.10–15, he contends that the fire of judgment is the same as the light of the divine glory. In light of this, he concludes that the character of the Spirit’s involvement in divine judgment is best understood as purification. The final judgment on this account is a purifying fire both for believers and unbelievers alike, although with different results. For believers, the Spirit is the purifying fire of God’s glory who liberates them from “the dross of sin and death.”75 For those who persist irreconcilably in turning aside from God, the light of God’s glory will not be purification; on the contrary, it will be a fire that consumes and destroys. It will burn away that which is 72 73 74 75

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 622. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 627. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 623, n. 292. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 625 (translation amended). “den Schlacken der Sünde und des Todes” (Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 3, p. 671). Consider Ps. 119.119— Du schlaffst alle Gottlosen auf Erden weg wie Schlacken, darum liebe ich deinen Mahnungen (Luther Übersetzung).

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incompatible with God’s presence and find that nothing remains. Some will suffer the fires of purification as destruction, but Pannenberg does not believe the emphasis of a doctrine of divine judgment should fall on these cases. They should be viewed instead as “borderline” cases.76 This conception of the Spirit has implications for the Pannenberg’s understanding of Christ’s role related to judgment. On Pannenberg’s view, the declaration in Jn 12.47 that Christ condemns no one is safeguarded by seeing the Spirit as the organ of judgment. Pannenberg’s discussion of the Spirit as the organ of judgment is a further instance of his tendency to “profile” the appropriations of divine action with some detail. Yet, as we saw in Chapter 1, he envisions their mutual sharing according to his understanding of God as Spirit.77 Given Pannenberg’s commitment, his efforts to lessen the Son’s involvement in the judgment by appropriating this action to the Spirit appear, in this case, to rather transparently determine his exegetical conclusions. Do we really find warrant for saying that the Son doesn’t participate in judgment in any real sense? Further, does appropriating the work of judgment to the Spirit as its “organ” really protect an account of the Son’s involvement in divine action that trades on the mutual participation of divine persons as Pannenberg’s does? This might be a point in ST at which Pannenberg’s formulation of a mutually differentiated unity of divine action is either found to be at its most poignant or stretched to its most tenuous application. As part of the Spirit’s glorifying work, the application of judgment’s purifying fire enables us to see transfiguration (Verklarüng) as the final result of judgment for believers. Transfiguration entails the transformation of our mortal bodies for fellowship with God through the purging away of all that is incompatible with God’s presence. “Our mortal lives cannot persist in the presence of the eternal God,” Pannenberg recently reaffirmed, “though he does not want to annihilate his creation, but to redeem it. In order to be preserved in the presence of eternity, our finite lives must be transformed, transfigured.”78 We should keep at the forefront of our exploration of Pannenberg’s eschatology that the end result of the Spirit’s glorifying activity is the creature’s participation in “God’s eternal glory,” and thus he has in mind a radical reorientation and transformation.79 With this in mind, it is likely that Timothy Harvie’s and Michael Gilbertson’s readings of Pannenberg’s eschatology underestimate the far-reaching, drastic change that Pannenberg here envisions. Harvie is surely correct that the fire of judgment effects a “purgation of that which is sinful or works done in 76 77 78 79

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 620. See Chapter 1, Section 3. Pannenberg, “Modernity, History, and Eschatology,” p. 498. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 625.

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folly which are useless due to their deficit in bringing honor to Christ”—but it is without doubt also more than that.80 As Pannenberg says, the work of the Spirit to glorify God in his creatures will come to the fore “in an overwhelming way, gathering together and transforming all else”; this necessarily includes purgation, but it entails much more as well.81 The same is true for Gilbertson’s appraisal. For Gilbertson, Pannenberg’s account of the culmination fails to adequately represent the element of transformation evident in the book of Revelation.82 Gilbertson is entirely right to see that Pannenberg understands the coming of God’s kingdom as a “culmination,” but he inadequately portrays the full extent of transformation that is so readily apparent in Pannenberg’s eschatological vision. If Gilbertson was looking for a detailed explication of how the created order will be transformed or a description of its final form, he will not find it in ST. However, if Pannenberg’s portrayal of the Spirit’s transfiguring ministry is given the dogmatic weight Pannenberg intends, one cannot fail to imagine the degree of radical transformation he has in mind.83 Having discussed in some detail reconciliation’s completion as it relates to the character of divine action, we will be occupied in the final section of this chapter with delineating the content of completed reconciliation, namely, fellowship with the triune God as participation in his eternal life.

3. The Harmony of Human Totality Pannenberg’s rendering of the eschatological consummation has long been characterized by musical analogies, such as the following (1984): Those who have communion with Jesus will be saved from the eternal wrath, to the effect that the discord of contradictions destroying the unity of our life will be overcome and transformed into the harmony of that whole that God intended us to be.84 80

81 82 83

84

Timothy Harvie, “Living the Future: The Kingdom of God in the Theologies of Jürgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg,” IJST 10, no. 2 (2008), p. 158. For example, Pannenberg, ST3, p. 626. Gilbertson, God and History, p. 204. Pannenberg refers to the consummation of history through the entrance of eternity into time as a “transfiguring of the world and of life” but does little to explicate the content of the world’s transformation (Pannenberg, ST3, p. 555; also, Pannenberg, ST2, pp. 136–46). Gilbertson’s critique has some justification, if only to indicate that Pannenberg’s doctrine of the last things could have gone further in detailing the nature of transformation of the created order and potentially the ethical implications for ecological stewardship (see Jackson, “Creation and Reconciliation”). Pannenberg, “Constructive and Critical Functions,” p. 135.

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On Pannenberg’s reading sins are cast as “discords” and the transfigured existence of creation in fellowship with God as “harmony.” Even earlier, in Was ist der Mensch? (1962), he described the hearing together of life’s sinful occurrences that will occur in the eternal present as a “monstrous disharmony.”85 Not surprisingly, Pannenberg says much the same in ST: with eternity’s entrance into time the contradictions of life ring out together in “shrill dissonance.”86 ST is notably different from his earlier writings on eschatology, however, in that Pannenberg expands here considerably on the Spirit’s glorifying activity. In ST the entire doctrine is given a radically pneumatological shape that was absent to this degree before. The Spirit is described as the divine person who brings creatures to praise their Creator, an eternal worship in which God is praised, and in doing so creatures differentiates themselves from God in fulfilled independence. In uncharacteristically poetic language, Pannenberg identifies the Spirit’s glorifying activity as that which changes “the dissonance of judgment into the peace of God’s kingdom and the manyvoiced harmony of the praise of God that will sound out from the mouth of renewed creation.”87 As we begin our exploration of the “content” of completed reconciliation in Pannenberg’s account, the pneumatological shape of his eschatology will repeatedly surface. A second recurring and central aspect of reconciliation’s completion is the manner in which the concept of human “totality” is filled out as “fellowship.” According to Pannenberg’s future-oriented ontology, it is only with the eschatological completion of history that “totality” comes into being and the essence of events, and beings, are determined. As Christian Mostert puts it, Pannenberg’s metaphysics is best seen as “an ontology of ‘final coherence,’ in which reality as a whole is understood as a totality of meaning.”88 To put it another way, the true nature of things (its essence) is entirely determined by the completion of reality (i.e., history), which is accomplished by the coming of God’s kingdom. Since “the future is the source of the possible wholeness of an individual human existence then we must say that its essence, and thus ‘what it is,’ are determined by its future.”89 During their temporal existence creatures “participate in their being in so far as they anticipate their final outcome” in God’s eternity, the event of God’s own infinite life, the event of perfect unity and integration.90 While Pannenberg’s 85 86 87 88 89 90

Pannenberg, What is Man?, p. 78. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 610. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 630. Similarly, p. 640. Mostert, God and the Future, p. 78. Pannenberg, MIG, p. 87. Benjamin Myers, “The Difference Totality Makes: Reconsidering Pannenberg’s Eschatological Ontology,” NZSTh 49, Spring (2007), p. 145.

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eschatological ontology may appear akin to Whitehead’s philosophy, he is clearly not contending for another form of process theology.91 Instead, as Pannenberg argues, what turns out to be true from the end is evident to have been true all along. In this sense, the telos of a thing wields retroactive causality over the entire process of its temporal existence and becoming: “the telos is at the same time the reality of the thing.”92 As we will see in the following discussion, Pannenberg does not allow the notion of “totality” to remain an abstract, metaphysical concept but fills it out with a trinitarian vision for human participation in the filial relation between the Father and the Son. While Pannenberg’s future-oriented ontology draws heavily upon Plotinus, Heidegger, and Dilthey, his own formulations in ST are given a shape more dogmatic than philosophical; one finds little of the heavily metaphysical discussion that constitutes his earlier Metaphysics and the Idea of God (hereafter, MIG). While philosophically robust, Pannenberg’s arguments in ST follow the same pattern we have observed before, what Shults calls “asymmetrical relational unity.” Though Pannenberg’s theological reasoning can be seen, in some sense, to move back and forth from the theological to the philosophical, the metaphysical distinctions are taken up and filled out by the dogmatic. In this sense, the philosophical, metaphysical arguments are taken up by the theological in such a way that they do not “control” the overall presentation. An example of this is the way in which Pannenberg fills out his vision for the coming of eternity into time in chapter 15 with a lengthy and detailed exposition of the Spirit’s work rather than by a metaphysical discussion of time and eternity. A further example is the absence of Pannenberg’s metaphysical distinctions between the “part” and the “whole.” Eschatological salvation as fellowship with God is more than reconciliation, which indicates the radical transformation that occurs through the creatures’ glorification by the Spirit. “Only the consummation phase of the process transcends reconciliation” Pannenberg explains: “As we are reconciled by the death of Christ, we shall receive salvation by his life (Rom. 5:10). Eschatological salvation is more than reconciliation; it is participation in God’s own life, which has been manifested already in Jesus Christ by his resurrection from the dead.”93 For Pannenberg, then, the content of human 91

92

93

On Pannenberg and process theology, see Pannenberg, Theology and the Kingdom of God, pp. 62–3; Pannenberg, “A Response to My American Friends,” p. 323; Pannenberg, MIG, pp. 71–3, 113–29; Pannenberg, ST1, p. 331. Pannenberg, MIG, p. 106. Pannenberg uses the example of a zinnia to explain. A zinnia holds its name because of its bloom but is always a zinnia from the time of its cutting through the entire process up through its blossoming. It is only at its blossoming, however, that its identity is made evident. In this sense, the zinnia “would possess its essence through anticipation,” though only at the end, its blossoming, “would one be able to know that this was its essence” (Pannenberg, MIG, p. 106). Pannenberg, ST2, p. 413, n. 51.

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destiny and therefore “totality” is fellowship with the triune God. Put differently: “Fellowship” is the controlling motif for Pannenberg’s exposition of human totality as participation in the divine life through which his concept of creaturely participation is best interpreted. The fulfillment of reconciliation as “fellowship” with the triune God takes up and fills out the concept of human “totality” and the language of participation, not vice versa. Getting the relationship between fellowship, totality, and participation wrong results in interpretations that find Pannenberg depleting human particularity or arguing for a kind of panentheism. According to Pannenberg’s concept of human “totality”—or human “destiny”—creatures only reach their fulfillment in the completion of reconciliation as fellowship with the triune God, described in chapter 15 in terms of “harmony.” The completion of reconciliation includes, necessarily then, the fulfillment of an eschatologically oriented concept of human identity: The eschatological transforming of the life we live here in the light of the divine destiny that transcends its successes and failures, and thus relativizes the distinction between them, does not threaten our identity but completes [vollendet] it beyond anything that we now are by fulfilling that which is not yet fulfilled [unerfüllt] in the fragmentary form of our present life. This, too, is part of the reconciliation of this earthly life of ours with its Creator.94 This fulfillment of human life, the completion of our identity, comes about when we attain to our ultimate destiny, defined by Pannenberg as fellowship with God, participation in the triune life. The human destiny for divine fellowship must therefore be understood eschatologically. Creaturely participation in the divine life will not be fully achieved until the final completion of reconciliation, which comes about by the return of Jesus Christ and the work of the Spirit to glorify creatures. That Pannenberg orients the achievement of human destiny eschatologically is not especially noteworthy, except that he explicates human possession of the divine image eschatologically as well. As he understands it, the image of God is fully realized in human persons only with the achievement of their destiny in the final consummation. These two insights are central for grasping the shape of the completion phase of reconciliation in ST: the content of completed reconciliation is participation in the fellowship of the triune God and the work of completion is most properly the work of the Spirit. We parse more closely the former of these tenets in the following section. Doing so explicates what human fellowship with God involves in Pannenberg’s view, first as the fulfillment of the divine likeness and second as the final subjugation of evil (the latter 94

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 641. Emphasis mine.

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occupies us in the final movement of the chapter). In both cases, we see that the pneumatological shape of reconciliation’s completion is significant.

3.1. Reconciliation’s Completion as Participation in Triune Fellowship Fellowship with God entails the fulfillment of the divine likeness. While Pannenberg’s doctrine of the divine likeness is not the focus of our study, his account warrants our attention here because it influences our perception of the relationship between humanity’s destiny for the divine likeness and the account Pannenberg gives of its fulfillment in reconciliation’s completion. Pannenberg’s doctrine of the divine likeness attempts a via media between two views: the image of God as an original gift and something entirely reserved for the eschatological consummation. For Pannenberg, the divine likeness is the capacity of finite creatures to transcend their finitude through differentiation from God and thus experience the fellowship with God for which they were destined. Jesus Christ was the first human person to accomplish this and has thus made way for other persons to do the same in faith and baptism. Some formulations of the imago Dei locate the divine likeness in an original state that was subsequently lost through the Fall. Pannenberg finds these entirely unable to account for the tension between the Old Testament understandings of the image of God is present at creation and the New Testament affirmation that Jesus Christ alone is the image of God.95 Instead, because the content of the imago Dei is found in fellowship with God, the divine likeness is an eschatological reality that directs our attention ahead to its future fulfillment. “Creation and eschatology belong together,” he contends, “because it is only in the eschatological consummation that the destiny of the creature, especially the human creature, will come to fulfillment.”96 So Pannenberg affirms aspects of both. On the one hand, creatures are granted a “disposition” for the image of God, one grounded in God’s creative intention, but on the other hand, the realization and fulfillment of that disposition is completely dependent on the work of God to bring creation to its completion. With the eschatological completion of God’s creative work, humanity’s destiny for fellowship with God will be realized as well. Therefore, on Pannenberg’s account, humans have “a potentiality for” the image of God. In each human person a “disposition” toward the image of God exists that “tends toward the realization of the purpose of creation.”97 This creaturely “disposition” is not a preliminary gift of 95

96 97

Wong, Wolfhart Pannenberg on Human Destiny, p. 26. See also, Christopher L. Fisher, Human Significance in Theology and the Natural Sciences: An Ecumenical Perspective with Reference to Pannenberg, Rahner, and Zizioulas (Princeton Theological Monograph Series; Eugene: Pickwick, 2010), pp. 35–44. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 139. Wong, Wolfhart Pannenberg on Human Destiny, p. 26.

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the Spirit but a consequence of the dynamic relationship between the divine Spirit and the human spirit characteristic of Pannenberg’s pneumatology.98 Further, Pannenberg’s account registers an emphasis on divine action directly related to our study of the completion of reconciliation. Persons cannot realize their own destiny; God alone can accomplish their disposition for the divine likeness. The similarities and distinctions between Pannenberg and J. G. Herder are instructive on this point. Both conceive the image of God in terms of its future orientation, a history of becoming the image of God, and both stress a form of divine necessity regarding its fulfillment. On both accounts, human persons depend upon God alone for its coming about, even though they have a part to play in the process. As Pannenberg argues: No matter what terms we choose to use . . . the final insight must always be that actualizing the disposition for divine likeness is not merely a task that we are to perform on our own, even though our participation—our active participation in the process of our own history—is not to be excluded. Only God can cause the image of himself to shine in us. . . . The moment we take our destiny of fellowship with God into our own hands, we are already sinners and have missed the mark.99 The difference between Herder and Pannenberg comes into view when we see the grounding for their shared emphasis on divine action. Herder frames divine necessity in terms of providence, while Pannenberg grounds it christologically, “in order to present a salvific, rather than a providential, account of the renewal of the imago Dei.100 The entrance of the Son into the world reveals humanity’s final destiny for fellowship with God, one present from the beginning in the form of a disposition, though not fully realized until the incarnation.101 In the incarnation, one sees the “filial relationship of Jesus to the Father as the basic form of our human destiny for fellowship with God.”102 In Jesus one sees the proleptic fulfillment of human destiny, a destiny that will only be fully “completed” in the eschaton.103 98 99 100 101 102 103

See Chapter 2, Section 2.5. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 228. Similarly, Pannenberg, ATP, p. 60. Wong, Wolfhart Pannenberg on Human Destiny, p. 39. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 215. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 225. Pannenberg’s conception of the imago Dei has remained relatively stable since his initial writings on the subject. For example, in an early essay on anthropology, “Man— The Image of God?” (1960s), he wrote, “The goal of this history of man’s becoming man has already appeared in Jesus, and this sets the theme for all subsequent history: all human beings are to come to share in the truly human character which appeared in him (Wolfhart Pannenberg, “Man—The Image of God?,” in Faith and Reality [trans. John Maxwell; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977], pp. 48–9). The same basic

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Thus, the disposition of human persons for the imago Dei finds completion as reconciliation with God comes to completion in participation in the divine life. Said another way, for Pannenberg the completion of reconciliation entails the fulfillment of human destiny and with it, coming to be of the divine likeness in human persons. God’s eschatological, transforming work will complete human destiny “beyond anything that we are by fulfilling that which is not yet fulfilled in the fragmentary form of our present life,” which, on Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation, is part of the process of reconciliation between God and alienated humanity.104 We might probe Pannenberg’s conception further still by addressing questions related to human finitude and particularity. What does Pannenberg’s vision for human “participation” in the divine life mean for human persons and their created finitude? Another way of asking the question might be as follows: What is the capacity of Pannenberg’s vision of eschatological “totality” (participation as fellowship) to retain a robust account of human difference from God and distinction from others? Is there a sense in which Pannenberg’s account of “totality” does violence to the goodness of creaturely finitude? Or is salvation on Pannenberg’s view a necessary act rather than a movement of God’s gracious self-giving? Given the role Pannenberg affords the concept of human independence, the maintenance, even strong affirmation, of created finitude should be central to Pannenberg’s account of completed reconciliation.

3.1.1. Totality and Difference: Human Fulfillment in Triune Fellowship As we saw above, the content of human destiny and therefore “totality” is a vision for fellowship with the triune God of reconciliation. Reconciliation’s completion in “fellowship” takes up and fills out the idea of participation and the concept of human “totality,” not vice versa. Getting this wrong results in interpretations that find Pannenberg to deplete human particularity or devalue the importance, even necessity, of creaturely finitude (despite his repeated arguments to the contrary). Criticisms along these lines have come from various angles. For some, Pannenberg’s concept of final totality as a timeless eternity tends toward the destruction of “difference”;105 others argue that God’s infinity, on his

104 105

argument comes through in Systematic Theology, where Pannenberg says that “our destiny as creatures is brought to fulfillment by Jesus Christ” (Pannenberg, ST2, p. 210. Similarly, p. 231). Pannenberg, ST3, p. 641. Paul S. Fiddes, The Promised End: Eschatology in Theology and Literature (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), pp. 130–9, 213–15; Bradshaw, Trinity and Ontology, p. 341; Niels Henrik Gregerson, “Einheit und Vielfalt der schöpferischen Werke Gottes: Wolfhart Pannenbergs Beitrag zu einer trinitarischen Schöpfungslehre,” KuD 45 (1999),

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account, fails to give a full affirmation of finite human life as such, tending inevitably toward an ultimate reintegration into the infinite that entails the destruction of finitude;106 and for others still, Pannenberg’s soteriology fails to acknowledge the acceptance of finitude and thereby constitutes a type of “ambitio divinitatis.”107 We need not delve into each of these arguments but might use their shared concern about the importance of creation’s finitude, its difference from God, as an opportunity to indicate the distinct angles from which Pannenberg works to secure an account of creaturely finitude in reconciliation’s completion. I have pointed out Pannenberg’s desire to secure the fulfillment of creaturely independence in which creatures share fellowship with God through differentiating themselves from him. If these critiques are in fact accurate, then serious doubt would be cast on Pannenberg’s success in articulating a reasonable account of human independence. If human persons lose all individuality and are dissolved into some metaphysical “One,” surely Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation would be seriously flawed, or at least unsuccessful. We find our way into this issue through a brief consideration of David Bentley Hart’s handling of the relationship between totality and difference in The Beauty of the Infinite. Hart’s presentation will highlight the issues at stake in Pannenberg’s own conception. Like Pannenberg, Hart conceives of the eschatological consummation as a perfected harmony in which all discords will be finally reconciled. And with Pannenberg, although along more self-consciously Eastern Orthodox lines, he describes the destiny of created persons as participation in the life of God. Most importantly, however, one of the central arguments he puts forth is against the concept of transcendental unity and the destruction of created difference. Hart insists particularly sharply that God, and thus creation, should be thought about in terms of differentiation and difference. Hart argues that “difference” and “particularity” are an essential part of creation’s “goodness.” “Because being’s differences are affirmed in their particularity,” Hart explains, “because God elects just these differences, and delights in them, and desires them for himself, he does not merely consign difference to fate, to the irretrievable flow of time, but also acts to liberate what he makes from sin and death: this is his infinite ‘it is good.’ ”108 The goodness of creation derives precisely from its plurality and difference and not from

106

107 108

pp. 102–29; James K. A. Smith, The Fall of Interpretation: Philosophical Foundations for a Creational Hermeneutic (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), pp. 65–70. Walsh, “Pannenberg’s Eschatological Ontology,” pp. 248–9; Olthuis, “God as True Infinite: Concerns about Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Systematic Theology, Vol. 1 [in “Pannenberg’s Systematic Theology, Vol. 1: A Symposium,” pp. 304–25],” pp. 324–5. Mattes, Role of Justification, p. 84. David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), p. 272.

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an underlying sameness or unity of oneness; creation’s goodness is found in its “intervals and instances of beauty,”109 and this difference, at its most basic level, “ ‘corresponds’ to God.”110 As Hart understands it, the differences inherent to creation’s own beauty are ultimately grounded in God’s triunity, understood as the infinite difference and otherness that is most basic to God’s life. God is not some metaphysical “One,” as Plotinus conceived, but the infinite God characterized most fundamentally by “the infinite music of the three persons giving and receiving and giving anew.”111 The world “in all its irreducible diversity,” Hart contends, is “an analogical expression (at a distance, in a different register) of the dynamism and differentiation that God is.”112 Quite naturally then, God’s work of reconciliation does not destroy the difference and particularity of each individual but “takes [each thing] back to himself without despoiling it of its difference.”113 The eschatological consummation will consist in the perfected harmony of difference. “It is the promise of Christian faith,” Hart reasons, that, eschatologically, the music of all creation will be restored not as a totality in which all the discords of evil are necessarily participated, but as an accomplished harmony from which all such discords, along with their false profundities, have been exorcised by the way of innumerable “tonal” (or pneumatological) reconciliations.114 For Hart, the final reconciliation of all things to God will not be an “Aufhebung, a tragic forsaking of the particular” but a symphony in which difference and particularity are celebrated and affirmed within the eternal sphere of God’s triune life.115 The eschatological consummation will mean not a “forsaking of the particular” but a symphonic harmonization between God and created beings; and this brings our focus back to Pannenberg. As we have seen, Pannenberg understands humanity’s God-given destiny as fellowship with God, and he describes sin as a striving against finitude that distorts the creaturely independence indispensable for fellowship. Through Christ’s death reconciliation was accomplished by which human persons may accept their own finitude and be restored to proper fellowship with God through faith and baptism. If Pannenberg’s accounting for participation in

109 110 111 112 113 114 115

Hart, Beauty of the Infinite, p. 258. Hart, Beauty of the Infinite, p. 180. Hart, Beauty of the Infinite, p. 180. Hart, Beauty of the Infinite, p. 192. Hart, Beauty of the Infinite, p. 192. Hart, Beauty of the Infinite, p. 281. Hart, Beauty of the Infinite, p. 401.

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the triune life negates created finitude, then his doctrine of reconciliation fails quite dramatically according to his own priorities. However, quite the opposite is true for Pannenberg’s account of reconciliation’s completion. The importance of interpreting Pannenberg’s vision for eschatological totality according to his understanding of divine fellowship is bolstered by considering “totality” from two different angles: the doctrines of the Trinity and the final resurrection. Doing so will demonstrate that the completion of reconciliation as participation in the divine life attempts an articulation of the transformation—not the destruction—of creaturely finitude.116

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A third angle concerns Pannenberg’s understanding of the logical categories of “part” and “whole” that he develops in MIG (Pannenberg, MIG, pp. 130–70, esp. pp. 138–47, 150–63). From that material, Christian Mostert and Benjamin Myers both argue that Pannenberg’s understanding of the concepts “whole” and “part” provides further evidence of his intention to preserve creaturely finitude and particularity in the eschatological consummation. Mostert contends that Pannenberg’s “fundamental ontological vision” is not for an eschatological totality in which created difference is eliminated but for a “differentiated totality” (Mostert, God and the Future, p. 88; cf. Pannenberg, MIG, pp. 138–47). If this is correct, and it appears to be based on Pannenberg’s depiction of trinitarian fellowship, there should be no suspicion that Pannenberg’s vision of eschatological “totality” entails the elimination of created finitude (i.e., of finite difference for the sake of the whole of finite reality). As Myers puts it, in Pannenberg’s view the elimination of created difference in totality would “eo ipso, be the elimination of the whole. . . . The particular is thus the locus of the whole; difference is the locus of totality” (Myers, “The Difference Totality Makes,” p. 150). Because Pannenberg’s presentation in chapter 15 does not rely on the logical relationship between “part” and “whole,” this study does not give it extended attention. It is sufficient to note the following. In MIG Pannenberg argues that God is immanent to creation but necessarily distinct from it, and as such, God is “the unifying unity of the totality of the finite” (Pannenberg, MIG, p. 143). He prevents his conceptual argumentation from completely floating free of its theological moorings by arguing that the unity which will ultimately characterize the finite “whole” is found in the triune God. The “difference within God” is his triune identity, and this, Pannenberg writes, “typifies the relationship of part and whole,” enabling us analogically to understand the relationship between God and creatures in fellowship (p. 144). For Pannenberg, the “whole” names the eschatological identity of creation in its totality, in which the historical progressions and structural relations that mark created reality now are healed/reconciled but not dissolved. Just as the persons of the godhead exist in eternal relationship of mutual self-distinction from one another without the dissolution of each person, so creatures in eschatological fellowship with God in their glorified existence will celebrate their distinction from God as well. The trinitarian shape of Pannenberg’s eschatology provides an additional theological, doctrinal point of concretion to these metaphysical commitments related to the “whole” and the “part” delineated in MIG.

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3.1.1.1. God’s “Living Plenitude” and the Glorification of Believers Throughout ST Pannenberg repeatedly insists that created finitude and the creature’s distinction from God are maintained in their participation in the divine life. He says the same in chapter 15: “Without losing their distinction creatures receive through him a share in the life of God himself.”117 In chapter 6, he puts forth essentially the same contention, derived in that case from the assertion that “love” constitutes God’s essence such that the unity and distinction of the divine persons are maintained. A trinitarian concept of “love” allows us to distinguish the persons of the Godhead in their relations and mutual self-distinction from each other, and Pannenberg contends the same is true of human persons in their relation to God: “It is the unity of God with his creature which is grounded in the fact that the divine love eternally affirms the creature in its distinctiveness and thus set aside its separation from God but not its difference from him.”118 On Pannenberg’s view, the Spirit’s transfiguring activities transform human finitude rather than do away with it. The finitude which characterizes creaturely life should not be linked to mortality and the inevitability of death; instead, death should be understood as a consequence of sin. Recognizing that the biblical witness indicates some connection between finitude, sin, and death (e.g., Gen. 3.5), Pannenberg contends the transformation of creaturely finitude is bound up with the relationship between eternity and time. Sin results in separation—both from God and from others. In eternal fellowship with God, therefore, it is not finitude that is done away with but separation: We can truly understand the link among finitude, sin, and death only from the standpoint of the relation between finitude and time. The finite life of creatures is a life in time, for that reason, however, it did not have to be lived in the brokenness of our experience of time for which all life is torn apart by the separateness of past, present, and future. . . . This life of separateness means that the totality of our life constantly evades us.119 The Spirit’s work of glorification brings with it a transformation of creaturely finitude. This transformation results in a “finitude of the perfected” which will “no longer have the form of a sequence of separated moments of time but will represent the totality of our earthly existence,” an existence we only have in the form of anticipation during our present existence.120

117 118 119 120

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 554. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 446. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 561. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 561.

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The Spirit’s work of glorification is the critical component of Pannenberg’s account, one that both affirms the goodness of created finitude and maintains a strong account of creaturely transformation. As we saw in the previous section, Pannenberg fills out the concept of totality through an articulation of human fellowship with God. On this account, fellowship with God includes an affirmation of the goodness of God’s original creation; finitude is not something sinful to be overcome but necessary for fellowship with God. The renewal and transformation of human independence is central to Pannenberg’s entire concept of fellowship, as we have seen throughout our study. In eternal fellowship with God, then, human creatures will retain a form of “perfected” finitude in which their distinction from God is not only retained but comes to fulfillment as the true existence of creatures. They will honor and worship God as God, and in accepting their creaturely finitude, their independence finds the renewal and fulfillment necessary on Pannenberg’s account for fellowship with God. The independence with which God formed human creatures does not end in the eschatological consummation but is actually “the condition” of the mutual glorification Pannenberg envisions. According to this mutual glorification, “creatures have an existence with its own center,” Pannenberg explains, and characterized by spontaneity in relation to God and their fellows. Hence the glorification that accrues to them cannot imply their absorption into the life of God. Instead, the spontaneity of the glorification of the Father who is manifested in his glory by the Son is the medium in which the glorification of creatures themselves takes place by the Spirit.121 As the Spirit maintains the union between the divine persons in their distinction from one another within the immanent Trinity, so the Spirit will also maintain the distinction between creatures one to another and to God within eternity. In the divine fellowship shared by human creatures, distinction isn’t abolished, only the separation from God and others that comes with our rejection of finitude, our life characterized by amor sui, in which we live our lives as if we were the center of the world.122 In the act of eternal praise of the Creator, creatures let God be God and thus participate in triune fellowship. The genesis of Pannenberg’s account of the glorification of believers and their transfiguration for fellowship with God is the doctrine of God. 121

122

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 643. From another perspective, Pannenberg’s dependence on field theories also argues against any idea that he believes creaturely finitude is dissolved in divine fellowship (see Pannenberg, “Theological Appropriation of Scientific Understandings,” p. 258). Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 562–3.

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Specifically, the manner in which the intratrinitarian relations are marked out in terms of “love” bears on the relationship between God and creatures in eternal fellowship. Pannenberg argues that the divine essence is best understood in terms of love. Love is “the power that manifests itself in the mutual relations of the trinitarian persons.”123 Further, love “constitutes the concrete unity of the divine life in the distinction of its personal manifestations and relations.”124 According to Pannenberg’s doctrine of God, love is the person of the Spirit, not an abstract “relation.” The Spirit is the “power of love that lets the other be” who is at work in “the reciprocity of the trinitarian life of God as in eternity each of the three persons lets the others be what they are.”125 As such, God’s trinitarian love embraces the tension of the infinite and the finite without setting aside their distinction. It is the unity of God with his creature which is grounded in the fact that the divine love eternally affirms the creature in its distinctiveness and thus sets aside separation from God but not its difference from him. As love gives concrete form to the divine unity in its relation to the world, it also represents the taking up of the plurality of the divine attributes into the unity of the divine life. The differences do not simply disappear, but they have reality only as moments in the living plenitude of the divine love.126 God’s love is an infinite love arising from the depths of the eternal trinitarian relations between Father, Son, and Spirit. What does Pannenberg gain in describing the divine love as a “living plenitude”? At the very least it secures an account of God’s status as ever greater, and this is significant for the discussion related to creaturely finitude and divine fellowship. As Ben Quash writes, God is the triune one “whose divine life of love is both the absoluteness of love (there is no greater love) and yet never ceases to overflow itself (it is always greater).”127 The importance of Pannenberg’s move here can hardly be underestimated. The God into whom finite persons are taken up into eternal fellowship is a God of infinite, mutual love that sets the “other” apart in its distinction and thus does not abolish its particularity. We might take Pannenberg’s use of Plotinus as a ready illustration. Though Pannenberg draws heavily upon 123 124 125 126

127

Pannenberg, ST1, p. 427. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 432. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 427. Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 446–7. Emphasis mine. Pannenberg notes his dependence here on Maximus the Confessor Opusc. theol. polem. 8; PG, 91, 97A; cf. 91, 877A, 1113 BC, and 1385 BC. Similarly, Pannenberg, Theology and the Kingdom of God, p. 70. Ben Quash, Theology and the Drama of History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 185–6.

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Plotinus for his concept of eternity as the whole of time, Pannenberg’s vision for the One who brings about human totality isn’t the god of an abstract totality but the God of eternal, overflowing, differentiated love who draws creation into a union with himself, a union defined above all by relations of love. His critique of Hegel is telling in this regard as well. Describing the content of God’s infinity, Pannenberg identifies the necessity and apparent “paradox” of conceiving the infinite and finite in such a way that they are not seen merely seen as “a mere antithesis.” He finds Hegel entirely unhelpful in solving the problem. The infinite and the finite cannot be brought together, as Hegel thought, by the logic of concept and conclusion, for this offers nothing more than “a mere postulate of metaphysical logic.” It is too abstract for Pannenberg’s reading of the scriptures and the “personal” God found there. Instead, the dynamic of the Spirit, in the Old Testament sense, enables us to think the infinite and the finite together without negating the particularity of the finite. Moreover, the dynamic of the Spirit “may be filled out with content, and thus show itself to be formally consistent, only through the thought of the divine love.”128 Therefore, on Pannenberg’s doctrine of God, the divine love—the Spirit—eternally affirms creatures as creatures and in doing so maintains their distinction, particularity, and finitude while removing their separation from the sin-caused disruption of fellowship. Returning to the point at which this section began, we now see Pannenberg’s musical idiom—“harmony”—as a fitting mode for articulating the relationship between the differentiated nature of human totality and the doctrine of God’s triunity. Pannenberg describes the “undivided present” of fellowship in God’s eternity not as a single, undifferentiated note but as “the manyvoiced harmony of the praise of God that will sound out from the mouth of renewed creation.”129 The song that redeemed creation will sing out in praise of her creator will be harmonious precisely because many distinct voices will sound forth together. Pannenberg’s account resonates with Hart’s on this point, who describes the eternal “difference” of the divine life as “the differentiation of the music of unity, the infinite music of the three persons giving and receiving and giving anew.”130 We might conclude: by describing creaturely participation in the divine life along trinitarian lines Pannenberg affirms creaturely finitude, the goodness of finite creation as such. Pannenberg’s doctrine of the final resurrection should further persuade us that his vision for final, eschatological totality does not entail the destruction of created finitude. This unfolds in the fourth part of chapter 15, “Judgment and the Return of Christ,” in which I argue that Christ’s return is the medium of the coming kingdom.

128 129 130

Pannenberg, ST1, p. 446. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 630. Hart, Beauty of the Infinite, p. 180.

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3.1.1.2. The Final Resurrection and the Transformation of Finitude Pannenberg’s discussion under the heading “Judgment and the Return of Christ” includes the whole complex of themes bound up with Christ’s return and the coming of the kingdom: judgment, transfiguration, and the relationship between the Son and the Spirit in Christ’s return. In the first subsection, “Judgment and Its Standard,” working out the relationship between Jesus and the final judgment is his main concern. Concluding that eternity is judgment, Pannenberg affirms Christ’s role in the final judgment but gives interpretive priority to the Gospel of John, in which Christ is declared to judge no one (Jn 12.47).131 In the eternal present the “dissonances” of life’s separated moments sound out together, “and we can no longer engage in suppressing, in masking, in putting on facades, in order to preserve identity.”132 God is faithful to his creation—“holding fast” (festhalten) to it and thus “not letting his creatures make shipwreck on the dissonances of their existence”—and this means that God’s judgment is not destruction but a purifying fire through which everything not compatible with participation in God’s life is purged.133 From there, Pannenberg is positioned to explicate the role of the Spirit in terms of “glorification” in the third subsection, “The Work of the Spirit in Judgment and Transfiguration.” In the fourth and final subsection, “The Reality of the Returning Christ,” he argues that the eternal origination of God’s reconciling activity means that the individual and social elements of eschatology must be seen together in “indissoluble unity.” In defining the relationship between individual and social eschatology in that final section, Pannenberg affirms the necessity of created finitude from a further perspective. Just as the crucified Lord experienced the resurrection from the dead “as this individual in distinction from all others” yet “relat[ed] him to that of a totality, to a new humanity,” so we must understand our resurrection life: “as a removal of the individual autonomy and separation that are part of the corporality of earthly life, though with no simple erasure of individual particularity.” We understand Jesus as distinct from the body of Christ, though he shares an intimate union with his people as her head.134 Our resurrection will change us “into the image, not just a copy, of the risen Lord.”135 Analogous to Christ’s resurrection, then, the resurrection of believers

131 132 133 134

135

Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 613–20. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 610. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 611. Pannenberg refers readers to his statements in Wolfhart Pannenberg, Grundfragen systematischer Theologie. Gesammelte Aufsätze Band 2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980), pp. 184–5. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 628.

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will not result in the dissolution of their individuality one from another; rather, their separation from each other will disappear. Individuals become members of one body when they no longer have to assert themselves against one another, but mutually accept one another for what they are in their individuality, and for what in this way they are also for others, just as they accept the Father in his deity and Jesus Christ as their Head and Lord. In all these relations not only particularity but also its positive acceptance, and therefore also selfdistinction, are still the condition of fellowship, the same being true in relation to God.136 This affirmation is simply another reiteration of Pannenberg’s understanding of fellowship and finitude: sin is the creaturely distortion of independence and the rejection of created finitude in the search to “be as God” in relation to their Creator and to others. In order for creatures to enjoy fellowship with God they must accept their createdness, their finitude, and in thus differentiating themselves from their Creator they fulfill their destiny for fellowship with God. In the consummation, the role of the Spirit is critical in this regard, glorifying those who are related to him by faith who in turn glorify God as their Creator. In the eschatological consummation, then, creaturely independence does not end, but “by means of this event it abides in its true sense, as the actualization of the true freedom of the creature.”137 It should be clear at this point that Pannenberg’s concept of totality, and its relation to his vision for human destiny in fellowship with God, does not entail the negation of finitude but its transformation. Eschatological totality does not entail the negation of our particularity (i.e., finitude) but is, for Pannenberg, its “ground and preservation” such that “the finite particularities of temporal existence receive their place and their identity from the eschatological totality of God’s eternal kingdom.”138 Pannenberg conceives this in terms of the trinitarian reality of God’s life, one defined by eternal relations of love that overflow into the world through God’s creating and reconciling acts.

3.2. Totality and Evil: Hearing Dostoevsky’s Protest At the head of this chapter I quoted from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, and we return to Dostoevsky here because he poignantly indicates a further line of inquiry into Pannenberg’s account of reconciliation’s completion: the question of evil. 136 137 138

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 629. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 643. Myers, “The Difference Totality Makes,” p. 154.

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Craig Hill has argued that “all eschatologies are responses if not quite answers to the problem of evil.” He continues, “Eschatologies differ in how they conceptualize God’s triumph, but they are essentially alike in asserting God’s victory as the supreme reality against which all seemingly contrary realities are to be judged.”139 In addressing the capacity of Pannenberg’s conception to adequately respond to specific instances of evil and the possibility of their redemption, we approach the end of our study where Pannenberg concludes chapter 15, with theodicy (“The Justification of God by the Spirit”). In the previous section, under the contention that Pannenberg’s concept of participation in the divine life is best interpreted as a vision for fellowship, we explored the fulfillment of the divine likeness in reconciliation’s completion and related questions concerning human particularity and difference. A second implication of the consummation of fellowship with God, on Pannenberg’s account, is that fellowship with God entails the final subjugation of evil. Prior to God’s eschatological work, suffering and death “hold us fast in alienation from God,” but in reconciliation’s completion they will be finally overcome. Regardless of reconciliation’s status as “incomplete” until the eschaton, confidence in reconciliation’s completion, and with it salvation, is secured for believers by their being linked to Jesus through faith and baptism. Faith and baptism, moreover, are foretastes of eschatological completion that carry with them “access to the future of salvation” and anticipate God’s “eschatological vanquishing of wickedness and evil.”140 God’s final victory comes for believers in the fulfillment of their destiny in fellowship with God, a concept Pannenberg conceives in terms of participation “in the life of the Trinity”—the completion of history and entrance of eternity into time, which brings about final “harmony.” However, does Pannenberg’s vision for fellowship and “harmony” maintain a sustainable appreciation for the particularity of human suffering or does it reduce specific instances of temporal pain to a vision for totality and completion? In the following excerpt, Ivan, the studied skeptic, rehearses to his brother Alyosha his protest against notions of salvation and eschatological “harmony” in which the suffering of the innocent is somehow justified. Having just listened to Ivan recount stories of children who had been abused, tortured, and killed (which Dostoevsky had lifted from actual newspaper accounts), Alyosha asks, “What are you driving at?” Ivan replies only by telling still worse stories. He concludes with an account of an eight-year-old boy who had the temerity to throw a rock that injured the paw of a Russian general’s dog. As punishment, the general set his dogs upon the child, “hunting” him

139

140

Craig C. Hill, In God’s Time: The Bible and the Future (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), p. 4. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 641.

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until he was torn to pieces in front of his mother’s eyes. Ivan confesses that he uses stories of children only to make his point plainer and concludes: Oh, Alyosha, I’m not blaspheming! I do understand how the universe will tremble when all in heaven and under the earth merge in one voice of praise, and all that lives and has lived cries out: “Just are thou, O Lord, for thy ways are revealed!” Oh, yes, when the mother and the torturer whose hounds tore her son to pieces embrace each other, and all three cry out with tears: “Just art thou, O Lord,” then of course the crown of knowledge will have come and everything will be explained. But there is the hitch: that is what I cannot accept. . . . It is not worth one little tear of even that one tormented child who beat her chest with her little fist and prayed to “dear God” in a stinking outhouse with her unredeemed tears! . . . I do not, finally, want the mother to embrace the tormentor who let his dogs tear her son to pieces! She dare not forgive him! Let her forgive him for herself, if she wants to, let her forgive the tormentor the immeasurable maternal suffering; but she has no right to forgive the suffering of her child who was torn to pieces, she dare not forgive the tormentor, even if the child himself were to forgive him! And if that is so, if they dare to forgive, then where is the harmony? . . . I don’t want harmony. . . . Besides, they have put too high a price on harmony; we can’t afford to pay so much for admission. And therefore I hasten to return my ticket. And it is my duty, if only as an honest man, to return it as far ahead of time as possible. Which is what I am doing. It’s not that I don’t accept God, Alyosha, I just most respectfully return him the ticket.141 In returning his “ticket” Ivan is not rejecting God. No, what Ivan rejects is any concept of salvation—of final consummation for that matter—that comprehends a world so constituted and ordered that suffering and evil can be justified as part of God’s plan. Our study recommends a reading of Pannenberg in which “totality” is innocent of negating human “particularity” because it is sufficiently trinitarian; the concept of “totality” is filled out by a robust account of the eternal filial relation between the Father and the Son. Put differently, the trinitarian “excess” in Pannenberg’s doctrine of God mitigates concerns regarding the destruction of difference. Yet, is even a trinitarian concept of “totality” able to adequately address the outrage and refusal that accompany attempts to “justify” innocent suffering, what Ben Quash calls the “irreducibility of a particular human being’s pain”?142 On Quash’s reading, 141

142

Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky; London; New York: Quartet Books, 1990), pp. 244–5. Quash, Theology and the Drama of History, p. 94.

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teleologically governed views of history, such as Hegel’s, tend to fail because they try and make sense out of suffering and negation. They, like “epics,” try and contextualize sufferings such that they are “transmuted into a large framed picture.”143 For Quash, it happens to be the “strong teleology” emerging from Hegel’s treatment of drama that instantiates his critique against accounts of final reconciliation that search for “harmonious resolutions” to instances of historical pain. As Quash puts it, “There is an irretrievable cost to such confrontations with things that cannot be thought. Dumbness, insanities, disintegrations, suicides: in each case, lives seem to slip between the meshes of the thinkable into places we cannot comprehend and into which we cannot reach.”144 It is my intention in this section to suggest that Pannenberg’s account of eschatological totality, and for that matter of the final phase of reconciliation, does not fail (despite his critics) to affirm the unique particularity of individual human suffering principally because his doctrine of the Trinity “conditions” his view of eternity. The eternity into which individuals are taken up, the eternity that meets time in the eschaton and brings history to its end, is not an abstract timelessness but a personal union. When finite creatures are met by the end of time, they are encountered not by an abstract, devoid timelessness, but by God’s “own eternal life.” We might look first at what Pannenberg believes theodicy should not do. First, Pannenberg has in mind the sort of protest that Dostoevsky puts in the mouth of Ivan when he rejects what he calls “the aesthetic argument” (sin and evil “enhances the perfection of the universe because it offers an occasion for God to manifest his penal righteousness”145). His rejection reflects, on one level, the same aversion to God’s relationship to suffering and evil voiced by Ivan Karamazov. Instead, Pannenberg avers, theodicy is only possible “when we see that creation is linked to the divine work of reconciling and redeeming of the world” and thus will only be finally achievable when creation comes to completion in the final consummation of history.146 Only with reconciliation’s eschatological completion will God demonstrate his righteousness beyond any shadow of a doubt and make his love plain for the world to see.147 143 144 145 146 147

Quash, Theology and the Drama of History, p. 95. Quash, Theology and the Drama of History, p. 106. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 634. Pannenberg, ST2, p. 173. Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 642–4. Cf. Pannenberg’s treatment of theodicy in ST2 as it concerns the doctrine of creation. There he engages questions about the divine intention to create a world susceptible by explicating the cross as a demonstration that God takes coresponsibility for the presence of evil in the world. God “did not shirk from the responsibility” of the entry of evil into the world but “shouldered it by sending and giving up his Son to the cross” (Pannenberg, ST2, p. 169). Pannenberg’s answer to the obvious question of why evil was allowed in the first place goes back again to the

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Second, while the “aesthetic argument” is repugnant because it infuses a divine necessity into the presence of evil and suffering, Pannenberg discards Hegel’s theodicy on different grounds. The problem with Hegel’s conception is simply that it fails to accord with the Christian articulation of reconciliation with God—not the reconciliation of the “thinking spirit” to the “negative.” On Hegel’s conception of history, the individual good is sacrificed for the general, the ideal: “Thus, all that is negative will vanish as something that is subjugated and vanquished.”148 Contra Hegel, the “objects” of reconciliation are not abstract “negatives” but estranged, alienated persons.149 On the heels of his Hegel critique—its inability to retain the inherently personal nature of reconciliation—Pannenberg again puts to work his vision for the Spirit’s glorifying activity: “By the glorification of individuals, along with that of the Father and the Son by them, the kingdom of God will be actualized and the justification of God in face of the sufferings of the world will not only be achieved but also universally acknowledged.”150 The Spirit will effect a transfiguration of the human person through the fires of judgment, in which they are made fit for eternal fellowship with God. Entirely consonant with the pneumatological shape of Pannenberg’s doctrine of last things generally, his positive contribution to theodicy is also bound up with his understanding of the Spirit’s eschatological activity. For example, Pannenberg points to the Spirit’s glorifying activity when replying to John Hick’s criticisms. John Hick, in Death and Eternal Life, classifies Pannenberg’s eschatology (with Tillich’s) as an iteration of the “recapitulation theory” of eternal life. Because recapitulation theories constitute an “eternalizing” of our present earthly life they are incapable of providing hope for those whose earthly existence has been characterized more by suffering and degradation than by any moral, physical, aesthetic, or intellectual good.151 The problem with Pannenberg’s view is that “the discords” of one’s life existence “cannot . . . be worked into an eternal

148 149 150 151

nature of fellowship with God, a fellowship with God that requires the finitude of creatures. He explains, “Like pain and suffering, evil is possible because of the finitude of existence, and especially of living creatures that seek to maintain themselves autonomously and thus incline to aim at a radical independence. Here is the origin of both suffering and evil” (Pannenberg, ST2, p. 172). According to Pannenberg, the presence of evil points us to the necessity of eschatological hope. Addressing the questions related to the presence of evil and suffering in the world only in terms of a doctrine of creation is simply inadequate. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 635. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 635. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 636. John Hick, Death and Eternal Life (London: Collins, 1976), pp. 221–6. Hick develops this critique almost exclusively through a reading of Pannenberg’s short, lay-oriented piece What is Man? Cf. Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 638–9.

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harmony without the making of more and different music.”152 Hick’s appraisal fails to identify the center of Pannenberg’s earlier contentions, one that was in fact present but not as central to his formulation as it is in ST. The problem with Hick’s critique, Pannenberg avows, is that he “undervalued” the significance of the Spirit’s transfiguring, glorifying activity present in his earlier formulations. The Spirit’s transformation of one’s life that is necessary for fellowship with God includes an element of “compensation” for the sufferings and deficiencies of the present world and “triumph over its wrongs, hurts, and failures.”153 No matter how insignificant, “pitiable,” or underdeveloped a life may be in its earthly existence, it will be taken up and transformed in eternal salvation. “For this reason,” Pannenberg argues (filling out the concept from Jesus’ sermon on the Mount), Jesus’ message is “the gospel for the poor, for those who are blind and lame in this life, for the disadvantaged and handicapped, for those to whom the normal development of human life is denied.”154 Pannenberg develops the concept of eschatological judgment with the activity of the Spirit, thereby making it “personal” rather than an abstract concept of eternal wholeness or finality. But what of Pannenberg’s view of eternity’s timelessness? Fiddes argues that Pannenberg’s response to Hick does not adequately respond to Hick’s critique because Pannenberg’s entire account trades on a “timeless” view of eternity. A life devoid of earthly moral, physical, aesthetic, and intellectual good, Fiddes contends, “calls for an experience with a quality of newness which is more than receiving the same life again, however much viewed as a whole and so transformed.”155 Although Pannenberg might demur at this point, arguing that his view develops not an account of eternity’s “timelessness” but of eternity’s simultaneity of the whole of time, Fiddes considers “simultaneity” to be the same as “timelessness.”156 When eternity is conceived as the simultaneity of time, or even the wholeness of time, an “essentially static” view of eternity is put forth; and that, Fiddes contends, is the heart of the problem. Pannenberg “fails to balance closure with openness because he conceives ‘the whole’ as a simultaneity of time in which there can be no real development, adventure or progress.”157 Simultaneity “fails to take history seriously, abolishing the ‘before and after’ that makes events what they are” and thus minimizing tragedies and suffering as merely points of transition from one phase to another.158 In light of the problems created 152 153 154 155 156 157 158

Hick, Death and Eternal Life, p. 226. Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 639, 574. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 639. Fiddes, Promised End, p. 214. Fiddes, Promised End, pp. 138–9. Fiddes, Promised End, pp. 214–15. Fiddes, Promised End, p. 133.

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by eschatologies of timeless (or simultaneous) eternity, Fiddes argues that some form of time is needed in order for eternity to make possible the growth and development of created persons beyond death. Again, we must read Pannenberg’s account according to his trinitarian commitments. In this case, Fiddes fails to appreciate that Pannenberg’s concept of eternity is conditioned by his doctrine of the Trinity. The eternity into which individuals are taken up, the eternity that meets time in the eschaton and brings history to its end, is not an abstract timelessness but a personal union; a union Pannenberg understands in terms of the removal of separation between creatures and God and the transformation of the creature’s particularity and distinction. The problem of linking the thought of an end of time with that of life, including eternal life, disappears only when we consider that God and not nothing is the end of time. As the finite is bounded by the infinite, so are time and the temporal by eternity. The end of the temporal, of time and history in general, thus means transition to eternity. This can mean participation in God’s own eternal life.159 When finite creatures are met by the end of time, they are encountered not by an abstract nothingness but by “God’s own eternal life.” Pannenberg discusses the importance of a properly conceived view of time and eternity at some length in chapter 15; but when we view the flow of his argument as a whole, we find the conceptual arguments for eternity filled out by the doctrine of God; “eternity” is given meaning by the creaturely relationship with the triune God, which necessitates particularity and finitude. For example, Pannenberg affirms that temporality described as “the differentiation of tenses” is required in order for creaturely, finite existence to continue in eternity.160 Eternity, then, “must be thought of as including time or leaving a place for what is distinct in time” so that even in the eternal present some form of temporality is retained.161 Pannenberg addresses these questions about time and eternity in terms of the fellowship between the Father, Son, and Spirit; a fellowship that, as Pannenberg has repeatedly emphasized, is characterized by love. “Even though itself eternal,” Pannenberg writes, “the love of God brings forth time, works in time, and is thus present in time” and all for the purpose that his creatures might share in the filial relation of Jesus to the Father and thus participate in fellowship with the eternal life of God.162 When Pannenberg asserts that eternity requires a succession of moments to maintain finitude, he develops this not through 159 160 161 162

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 594. Emphasis Pannenberg’s. Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 643–4. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 595. Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 644–5.

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a conceptual expansion or theoretical investigation of how eternity might thus be conceived but with a discussion of the shared life of the Godhead and of God’s creative intention for fellowship. Creaturely fellowship with God in eternity was the “goal already” of God’s creative action and will therefore be the culmination of reconciliation’s completion.163 In the presence of real tragedy, injustice, and evil, Christians “dare” to hope, because hope is ultimately grounded in the faithfulness of God, in the promise-making and promise-keeping God to whom scripture attests.164 The shape Pannenberg gives to God’s being and unity marked out in his doctrine of God in ST1 is fundamental to the train of Pannenberg’s argument here. The trinitarian life of God is an “unfolding of his love” which, Pannenberg argues, is the way in which we must conceive God’s relation to the world.

4. Faithfulness, Time, and the Trinity Pannenberg’s dogmatics end on the same note that concluded ST1: a theological articulation of the shape taken by God’s trinitarian love over the course of the economy of salvation. As noted above, the doctrine of God formally ends with the conclusion of ST1, but in another sense, it actually just begins and continues until the closing words of ST3: “In every part the presentation of Christian doctrine from the standpoint of God, i.e., as theology, relates to the doctrine of God” and its subject is “the action of the trinitarian God in salvation history.”165 The entire scope of systematic theology therefore concerns “a more nuanced understanding of what it means that God is love.”166 This understanding puts Pannenberg’s theodicy in its larger context, most specifically in its relation to the doctrine of God. Pannenberg’s theodicy does not turn on abstract concepts, either of eternity or totality, but on God’s selfrevelation through the “incursions” of his love in history; his answer is a doctrine of reconciliation. Pannenberg’s presentation parallels his discussion of God’s unity in ST1. God’s unity, Pannenberg argues, should be conceived in terms of God’s historical faithfulness to his creation which, in turn, is a reiteration or reflection of the eternal faithfulness between the divine persons. God’s self-identification as “I will be who I will be” (Exod. 3.14), Pannenberg writes, demonstrates that God’s self-identity is “not a timeless identity of a concept of being” but “the self-identity of the truth of God which is faithfulness in historical action” demonstrated as goodness, patience, 163 164 165 166

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 644. Sauter, What Dare We Hope?, p. ix. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 630. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 448.

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righteousness, and so on.167 The unity of God’s being is ultimately found in God’s love, eternally present, shared between the persons of the Godhead and given “concrete form” in God’s reconciling actions in the world.168 In order to answer questions of the problem of evil Pannenberg chooses not to offer a better rational argument but a doctrine of reconciliation instead. In the first subsection of chapter 15, “The Problem of Theodicy and Efforts to Solve It by Argument,” Pannenberg argues that rational arguments for theodicy are wholly inadequate, and he suggests that theodicy in general may “even be an expression of unbelief.”169 Instead, he praises the fact that some people simply “have faith in God the Creator” despite the presence of suffering and evil.170 Quite apart from offering rational or philosophical explanations for the questions of evil and suffering, Pannenberg exposits and proclaims the historical acts of God for the reconciliation of the world, that “in Christ God has reconciled the world to himself” (1 Cor. 5.19). “The emergence of the eschatological future” in God’s historical acts of reconciliation are “to be understood as the way in which the divine love declares itself.”171 The inadequacy and insufficiency of rational and philosophical theodicies resides in their inability to offer what is ultimately required: the demonstration of God’s love for his creation. For Pannenberg, it will only be in the final consummation that all doubts of God’s existence and love will be removed. At that time, God will “consummate” the revelation of his love “in the consummating of his creation for participation in God’s own eternal life.”172 Then the “verdict” will be justified, the “clarification” given of God’s works, and his love for his creatures will be finally “proven.”173 In Pannenberg’s presentation in chapter 15, the overwhelming thrust of God’s eschatological “justification” by the Spirit appears noetic rather than ontological—God’s lordship over all creation is finally revealed. Therefore, if we expected to find intimations in this material that Pannenberg’s doctrine of the Trinity makes history “necessary” for God’s being—that God’s eternal being requires the completion of history in some sense—we might suspect to see it in his account of history’s completion and the justification of God by the Spirit. But we do not.174 Instead, Pannenberg’s final words on

167 168 169 170

171 172 173 174

Pannenberg, ST1, p. 444. Emphasis mine. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 446. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 632. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 634. Similarly, people “honor and praise God as their Creator” when they can say of the creation, “It is good,” prior to the eschatological consummation and “in spite of the suffering of the world” (Pannenberg, ST3, p. 645). Pannenberg, ST3, p. 644. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 645. Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 645, 631, 632. See Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 330–1.

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reconciliation paint its consummation in terms of the loving mutuality of the eternal divine life into which believers are joined in fellowship. At various points in our study, we have suggested that Pannenberg’s doctrine of God does not fall prey to the criticism of collapsing the immanent and economic Trinity and thereby making the history of the world necessary for God’s life in se. Reconciliation’s completion is further evidence for this. In the last paragraph of ST3 Pannenberg contends that the unity and distinction between the immanent and economic Trinity is found in “the march of the divine economy of salvation,” which he describes as the “manifestation of the divine love.”175 In saying that the “heartbeat of the divine love” found in the economy of salvation is the unity and distinction between the immanent and economic Trinity, Pannenberg returns to the place he ended the doctrine of God (which formed the beginning of his explication of God’s outward acts in ST2 and ST3). Speaking of the divine love requires a doctrine of reconciliation that offers a provisional, systematic exposition of God’s saving economy. God’s act of reconciliation simply is the expression of the divine faithfulness found between the divine persons from all eternity turned outward to creatures. The creative love of God finds fulfillment only with the faithfulness of God on the way of his historical action and with the revelation of his righteousness as the Creator of the world. For only through faithfulness does something lasting arise. If God wills the independence of his creatures, the success of his creative act depends decisively upon the faithfulness of his creative love, upon the expression of his eternity in the process of time.176 This passage appears in the final section of ST1 (the doctrine of God), but if we return to Pannenberg’s words in ST3 from which our study took its start we find him arguing the same point. The risk God took ordaining his creatures for independence resulted in their ingratitude, autonomy, and unwillingness to accept their finitude; “Nevertheless, God holds fast to his creation through his acts of reconciliation, and does so indeed in a way that respects the independence of his creatures.”177 Pannenberg does not posit the economy of salvation as the “basis” for God’s unity; rather, for Pannenberg God’s unity is based upon the love shared by the persons of the Godhead, a differentiated, relational unity constituted by the eternal relations of mutual self-distinction. In the economy of salvation—the “work of the divine love”—the love shared between the 175 176 177

Pannenberg, ST3, p. 646. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 438. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 643 (author’s translation. Pannenberg, Systematische Theologie, 3, p. 690).

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persons of the Godhead “finds nuanced and concrete form” but is not there constituted.178 In this sense, Pannenberg staunchly affirms the eternal sufficiency and plenitude of God’s immanent life without divorcing or abstracting it from the economy of salvation in time (“a timeless identity of a concept of being”). We have seen how Pannenberg argues for this in the conclusion of ST1, and he returns to the same affirmation here in the concluding paragraph of ST3. The “march of the divine economy of salvation” is a “manifestation of the divine love.” This eternal divine love, which Pannenberg defines in terms of the eternal mutual distinction between the persons of the Godhead, is the eternal basis of God’s coming forth from the immanence of the divine life as the economic Trinity and of the incorporation of creatures, mediated thereby, into the unity of the trinitarian life. The distinction and unity of the immanent and economic Trinity constitute the heartbeat of the divine love, and with a single heartbeat this love encompasses the whole world of creatures.179 In light of all this, Taylor is quite right when he recognizes that for Pannenberg, “The final unity of the immanent and economic Trinity is for us an eschatological matter” but is for God eternally established.180 As Pannenberg expresses, God is from all eternity “already the living God in the fellowship of the Father, Son, and Spirit,” and thus God’s creating, reconciling, and perfecting activity must be understood as “a repetition or reiteration of his eternal deity in his relation to the world.”181 That Pannenberg invokes “faithfulness” in the closing pages of ST3 is significant because of the way he utilizes the concept of God’s faithfulness throughout ST. As a divine attribute that we can know, faithfulness requires duration, the making and keeping of promises in time. God reveals his faithfulness, which is an eternal quality of the mutual relations of the Godhead, through creating a world to which he holds fast in love by reconciling it to himself. For creation, the demonstration of God’s faithfulness requires time. The temporal dimension between the immanent and economic Trinity in ST is then, on Pannenberg’s view, a necessary dimension in order for the love of God—as fellowship among the Godhead—to be expressed, reiterated, “actualized,” among his creatures.

178 179 180 181

Pannenberg, ST1, p. 445. Pannenberg, ST3, p. 646. Taylor, Triune God, p. 181. Emphasis mine. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 389.

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conclusion

This study began by recommending a particular way of reading Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation, one that would attend throughout to its three most salient characteristics: divine action, history, and divine faithfulness. As we have worked our way through it, we have seen how Pannenberg’s attention turns time and again both to the saving movements of the trinitarian God in history (the proper subject of a doctrine of reconciliation) and to the “commerce and communion” generated between him and his creatures. The task and challenge of drawing out these patterns of encounter so that God’s actions are found to include creatures exerts a great deal of force over Pannenberg’s formulations, and I have therefore repeatedly focused our attention upon it. I have shown the evidence of this intention at various points: Pannenberg grants the attribute of divine infinity a place of priority within his doctrine of God and identifies the attending consequences for the God-world relation accordingly;1 Christ’s death as representation and the mode of its inclusion of fallen creatures is explicated so that our independence is preserved rather than set aside; Pannenberg creatively appropriates the language and conceptuality of field theory in order to give a nondeterministic, intrinsicist shape to the Spirit’s activity in creation generally and more specifically in our appropriation of divine revelation; Pannenberg describes the church’s participation as most genuine and therefore most given in its activity of most radical dependence on God’s kingdom-consummating activity—prayer; and finally, our participation in the fellowship of the divine life is shown to satisfy our destiny only through the Spirit’s glorifying work which purifies us from sin without destroying our difference from the Creator. In each case, underlying Pannenberg’s thinking is the axiom that if the patterns of encounter between God and creatures are misconceived then Christian theology fails in its witness to the God of the Bible (the true Infinite) and, consequently, to the singular character of his reconciling action. 1


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This runs alongside an insight I highlighted at the very outset of this study. Christian theology variously names the distinction between God and everything else (Creator and creation, etc.), and that attentiveness to such distinctions have kept Christian theology mindful of the uniqueness of its object, God. This dynamic carries through in Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation; dogmatic elaboration on God’s reconciling action must remain ever attentive to its inimitable, matchless character as God’s reconciling activity. In the preceding chapters I have sketched the movements of Pannenberg’s account in such a way that this pattern would be most plain. In Chapters 1 and 2, I considered Pannenberg’s treatment of Christ’s representative death and the Spirit’s completion of reconciliation. Consequently we have seen Pannenberg’s effort to depict God’s reconciling action in such a way that it includes our actions, specifically how our creaturely particularity and independence are not set aside but transformed. It is in this light that I have attempted to read his account of the church’s participation in God’s reconciling work and the eschatological entrance of finite, time-bound creatures into the eternal, infinite fellowship of the Father and the Son by the Spirit’s glorification (Chapters 3 and 4). In short, through his doctrine of reconciliation Pannenberg works out God’s action in the world as the true Infinite, and in doing so issues an invitation to consider how such a God extends himself in reconciling love to his creatures so that their finite creatureliness is at every turn affirmed and found to be in the end good. All this means that any assessment of Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation must consider how his presentation of God’s action actually shapes our understanding of specific, temporal instances of creaturely commerce and communion. We might call these “moments” along the continuum between reconciliation’s anticipation and completion. Said differently, as we observe Pannenberg systematically articulating God’s reconciling action— the God who according to his unique holiness (infinity) both opposes the profane world and enters it, penetrates it, embraces it, makes it holy, and brings it into fellowship with himself2—we need also to attend to the ways in which Pannenberg characterizes the corresponding movements of human creatures. This is simply saying that given Pannenberg’s material interest in depicting God’s reconciling action as precisely an activity which transforms, enlivens, and affirms human particularity, would we not want to explore the ways in which such particularity is envisioned in his presentation? We might carry out this line of thinking by focusing it into a question: how well does Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation shape our understanding of the possibility that God’s saving activity fulfills rather than negates human particularity? In other words, how does Pannenberg shape our perception of those “moments” when divine and human commerce and 2


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communion are made concrete? I want to form a response according to 2 Cor. 5.18 and its twin emphases: “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” The text appears frequently in ST, and its twin emphases capture the theological dynamics I have highlighted throughout my reading. The first half registers divine reconciling action in Christ which establishes the basis for reconciliation and energizes its ongoing movement in apostolic proclamation (vv. 19-20). And the second half portrays the givenness of the church’s proclamation; God has “given us the ministry,” and as such, it is substantive and goes forth. “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ” As I have shown, Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation trades on a particular understanding of God as the holy (infinite) One who reveals in Jesus Christ his eternal faithfulness to creatures, his commitment to hold fast to them in their alienation from fellowship. Simply put, God is faithful to save. Pannenberg argues that God and his relation to the world are best understood according to a trinitarian formulation of divine infinity. This has multiple and far-reaching effects. The underlying point seems to be that all God’s interactions with creation must be conceived according to a standard that transcends our own. Pannenberg finds this standard satisfied in the articulation of God as the true Infinite. Talk of God, he says, must always “begin and end with confession of the inconceivable majesty of God which transcends all our concepts.”3 That beginning and ending, for Pannenberg, is found in the category of divine infinity. Accordingly, as the infinite creator and sustainer of the world, God’s action in time and the patterns of encounter it generates with us must be understood according to a fundamentally different genus than our actions. Thus, as the infinite, triune God, God’s power is proper to God alone; it exercises total determining effects without depleting creaturely determination. God’s presence is proper to God alone; he is everywhere present without destroying the finitude and particularity of creaturely reality. God’s actions are proper to God alone; they originate from outside the temporal realm and operate according to a criterion (infinity) that includes creaturely activity. And in the case of reconciliation, most specifically, God’s all-determining power is of the kind that includes and transforms creaturely determination on the way to participation in divine fellowship. The resulting conceptual, historical, scientific, and biblical deliberations that constitute Pannenberg’s doctrine invite readers to “see” how God might be understood to be just

3


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such a God, even if only in a provisional way this side of God’s final, eschatological confirmation. In this sense, Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation offers just what he anticipated as his attention turned from the doctrine of God at the end of ST1 to the divine economy in ST2. He there describes the task of systematic theology from its beginning point in the doctrine of God all the way through to its conclusion in eschatology as “offer[ing] a more nuanced understanding of what it means to say that God is love.”4 God’s love to creatures is entirely conditioned by the trinitarian life of God in which the divine love constitutes the concrete unity of the divine life in its personal manifestations and relations.5 On Pannenberg’s terms, love is defined by mutual self-giving, and self-giving both generates and preserves otherness, distinctiveness, and selfhood. It is fitting, then, that all along the way in his doctrine of reconciliation Pannenberg attempts to identify the patterns of encounter between God and creatures so that creaturely otherness, distinctiveness, and selfhood are found not to be set aside but preserved. Pannenberg wants us to see that God’s work for the reconciliation of the world includes the activity of those being reconciled, but not in such a way that we forget, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ.” However, nowhere is this incorporation of creaturely activity more clearly apparent than in Pannenberg’s account of churchly action, but at no other moment in the course of his presentation does this interchange between God and creatures appear more thin. “. . . and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” According to Pannenberg, God’s inclusion of the church in his turning to the world defines her participation as genuinely and wholly mutual but (importantly) given. Our constitution in Christ through the Spirit’s ecstatic work incorporates action, but those activities must be understood according to the unique character of God’s action. So, how well does such an account of creaturely activity, the church’s and the individual’s, enable us to actually see the unique shape of this “moment” along the continuum of reconciliation? At this moment of Pannenberg’s presentation the picture of creaturely activity is decidedly thin, and there are two likely reasons for this. First, Pannenberg’s heavy dependence on the language of “participation” risks a descriptively light account of the commerce and communion between God and creatures. I noted this earlier, in the conclusion of Chapter 3, saying that depictions of the church’s life in action that trade heavily on the language of “participation” risk underrepresenting the priority of the first 4 5

Pannenberg, ST1, p. 448. Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 422–32.

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half of 2 Cor. 5.18, “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself.” The end effect, then, is a blunting of the force of verse 20, in which God makes his appeal through us.6 To be fair, I do not want to say that Pannenberg fails to anticipate these concerns. For example, his emphasis upon the dependency of prayer and his criticisms of both liberation theology and Vatican II point to his desire to make clear the priority of divine reconciling action. In addition, his portrayal of the church’s ontology and function as sign registers his persistent effort to place material weight on God’s reconciling activity and its efficacy.7 And further still, the pneumatological/eucharistic solution he offers for imagining the efficacious source of the church’s witness consistently draws on his prior account of the Spirit’s activity. The question we might put to Pannenberg is not, then, whether he establishes the systematic, conceptual machinery to locate the church’s creaturely activity or even if he substantively emphasizes the priority of God’s reconciling work—he does both in ST with some rigor. Instead, we need to ask whether Pannenberg’s decision to ground creaturely activity within the sphere of a particular notion of divine infinity (together with its attending description of “participation”) makes giving a scripturally thick rendering of the church’s ethical action difficult, or at least not self-evidently necessary. This is a moment in ST when the tight conceptual apparatus that underlies Pannenberg’s dogmatics seems to play such a heavy role that his formulations are less self-consciously dependent on the scriptural text for their development. A more descriptively heavy account would have found it near impossible to explicate God’s reconciling activity as it is depicted in scripture without giving an equally robust account of the church’s life of participatory action in the Spirit. A second reason has to do with Pannenberg’s decision to separate dogmatics and ethics. This decision sets up a dynamic that appears to work against his intention to offer an account of God’s saving activity in which the responsive actions of its recipients are included and made plain.8 The distinction which ST follows (dogmatics is concerned with God and his agency and ethics with the human agent) surely affects all the moments along the reconciliation continuum, but it especially affects his description of the church’s life in action. It introduces a strain within his intention to dogmatically depict God’s reconciling action. Specifically, it hampers his ability to offer a thick description of the church’s participation in God’s turning to the world in love. One might suppose, however, that the descriptively thin account of the church’s life in ST is caused by some other aspect of Pannenberg’s thought, 6 7 8

See Chapter 3, Section 3. See Chapter 3, Section 2.2.1, pp. 144–50. Pannenberg, ST1, p. 59, n. 128.

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such as his view of history. Take, for example, Timothy Bradshaw. Bradshaw worries that Pannenberg’s view of God’s lordship over the future of history depletes his ability to speak of God’s “protest or empathy or judgment on sin and suffering in the world” today.9 The affect of Pannenberg’s stress on God’s Lordship over the future, according to Bradshaw’s reading, is that the tension and genuine tragedy of history is closed down. Calvary loses the “genuine shock and trauma of the death of Christ . . . the holy act of the holy loving God against sin and evil.”10 A similar concern is voiced by John Milbank in a comparison of Pannenberg to Moltmann. On Milbank’s reading, Pannenberg’s emphasis on the presence of the Son and the Spirit as the “always already” anticipation of the future “tends to entail a weakening of Moltmann’s tragic, staurological perspective, in favour of a developmental immanence of the final peaceful outcome.”11 Bradshaw and Milbank share a common concern that the truly tragic in human history receives only muted representation. As Bradshaw phrases it, “The synthesis of the past moving into the future seems to eclipse the act of the trinitarian God in time for his creation, a different eschatological breaking into a world of chaos and misery and disobedience by the Lord of the vineyard.”12 Do these critiques account for the relative thinness of Pannenberg’s presentation of the church’s active life? I do not believe so. A more persuasive explanation for the underdeveloped—or at least underdescribed—nature of the church’s life in action seems to be Pannenberg’s distinction between dogmatics and ethics. To follow this distinction assumes that any systematic account of the church’s participation in God’s reconciling activity is sufficiently full without the inclusion of an equally descriptive and robust account of her ethical determination. To be clear, this is not simply to fault Pannenberg for writing the dogmatics he did and not another. We should read and evaluate his account according to the criteria he establishes and his consistency in holding to them. I have also not attempted to weigh the gains and losses of Pannenberg’s method against other approaches. Instead, precisely because I have endeavored to take full account of Pannenberg’s own stated intention to identify the patterns of encounter between God and creatures according to his doctrine of God, we are led to question his account of the church’s active role in the realization of God’s reconciling action. For it is here, above all, that these patterns appear decidedly underdeveloped. It is more difficult to “see” the 9

10 11 12

Timothy Bradshaw, Pannenberg: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: T&T Clark, 2009), p. 175. Bradshaw, Pannenberg, p. 176. John Milbank, The World Made Strange (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), p. 181. Bradshaw, Pannenberg, p. 176. Similarly, Gillian Rose, The Broken Middle: Out of the Ancient Society (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), pp. 7–8; Jacqui Stewart, Postmodernity: Pannenberg, Ethics and the Human Sciences (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000), pp. 151–2.

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unique character of God’s action, and it is precisely that action which Pannenberg wants us to appreciate at just this moment of the continuum. I could say this another way: not only does Pannenberg’s mode of theological reasoning seem to make a more heavily scriptural rendering of the church’s witness unnecessary; but also his handling of the material hardly allows us to identify this particular “moment” at all. Perhaps, again, there exists another explanation. Could it be that Pannenberg envisions the church’s present existence as its realized end? But this is clearly not the case, for he marks the difference between the life of the church in time and its eschatological fulfillment. The church is a “sign” of the kingdom to come. As such, Pannenberg leaves space for the promise and tasks of a theology of culture or mission, for accounts of ethics and spirituality. However, Pannenberg’s principled distinction between dogmatics and ethics (and implicitly from spirituality as well) denudes his ability to draw out the intricacies and specificities that accord to the church’s participation in God’s reconciling action.13 Said differently, while Pannenberg’s conceptual idiom enables him to trace the outlines of the church’s participation with God, it fails to give depth and nuance to its shape. All of this makes it more difficult to accept Pannenberg’s invitation to “see” how God’s unique reconciling action includes and transforms the actions of human creatures because he has only traced the barest outlines. For all its conceptual tightness, in leaving the ethical implications of the church’s participation in God’s reconciling action without expansion, ST sits uneasily with Pannenberg’s own theological instincts about the coherence between divine and human acts in time. The risk is an unnecessarily idealized ecclesiology. We need more history—more acknowledgment of the tensed and incomplete existence of the church here and now. Saying this, however, does not mean that Pannenberg lacks resources at his disposal within his own theological system to do so. For one, in his view of God’s eternality and its relation to time—as the whole of time—Pannenberg intends to preserve rather than deplete the integrity of time. Related to this, as he repeatedly emphasizes, Christian theology and faith both take place this side of God’s eternity and are, therefore, both characterized by “provisionality.” Emphasis on provisionality secures an understanding of faith as trust, and of theology as an ongoing

13

This is despite the potential that some believe an intrinsicist view of the Spirit’s activity might hold for a “solidarity” view of Christian ethics. For example, Tuomo Mannermaa, “Justification and Theosis in Lutheran-Orthodox Perspective,” in Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther (ed. Carl Braaten and Robert Jenson; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), p. 41; Mannermaa, “Theosis as a Subject of Finnish Luther Research,” pp. 44–8; Linman, “Little Christs for the World,” pp. 198–9; Fackre, “Affirmations and Admonitions,” p. 128.

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enterprise.14 Within a systematic account of the church’s life, awareness of such provisionality would justify more expansion than Pannenberg allowed of those time-bound instances of ecclesial action that demonstrate her ongoing, unfinished, and dependent character in the flux of time. In other words, the ongoing character of the theological task, which Pannenberg secures through his emphasis on provisionality, would seem to necessitate further expansion on the church’s ethical action in just this temporal location. But again, even though Pannenberg may have the dogmatic resources to do so, this is an instance in which the distinction between dogmatics and ethics would seem to work against his intention to offer an account of God’s reconciling action that includes the responsive actions of its recipients. Pannenberg views the church as living “from her future” as it has appeared in time in the resurrection of Jesus and from which originates God’s kingdom-consummating activity. But this does not preclude an understanding of the church in terms of her existence “in the middle.” The church lives from the resurrection and is constituted by this event, but the church lives this side of the eschaton as well; her life unfolds “in the middle” and as such cannot be abstracted from her existence in this particular moment in time. Living in the middle, the church is marked by an unmistakable open-endedness which points toward a final consummation. It is this openendedness that accompanies the church’s sojourn toward her future, a future that remains truly a future and not yet a present. As Pannenberg would agree, we live on this side of the final consummation and are therefore unrelentingly confronted with pain, confusion, and unfinishedness. Just as “the theologian is always beginning in the middle of things,”15 any systematic account of the church’s participation should register its source (“all this is from God”) and necessarily explore the particular instances in which that participation takes shape or becomes “actual.” This would be especially true for an account such as Pannenberg’s in which the patterns of encounter between God and creatures repeatedly run close to the surface. Had Pannenberg permitted the pregnant reality of the church’s middle-life to have carried greater weight—and not only her future constitution—his presentation might have looked differently. It would have justified and given rise to further expansions on the specific instances through which the church’s “ministry of reconciliation” takes shape around her. This suggests that from Pannenberg’s view of the dogmatic task alone he may have found resources for a more fully developed account of the church’s participation.

14

15

For example, Pannenberg, ST1, pp. 16, 23, 54–6, 160, 213–14, 246–50; Pannenberg, ST3, pp. 152–72. Rowan Williams, On Christian Theology (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), p. xii. Emphasis in original.

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Beyond Pannenberg’s emphasis upon provisionality, he also has material resources at his disposal, specifically his theology of the Spirit. Take, for example, his description of “faith” as “ecstatic life in the Spirit.” “Faith,” Schwöbel contends, “makes the appropriate pattern for the distinction and relationship of God’s action and human action explicit: it is constituted by God, but it constitutes for human beings their fundamental capacity of action in interpreting, organizing, and shaping the world from the perspective of faith.”16 Therefore, based on the relationship between God and creatures which is fundamental to the structure of faith, “every locus of dogmatics has an ethical point, and every ethical topic has dogmatic presuppositions and implications. This connection enables dogmatics to be more than theory and protects its theory from becoming speculative.”17 Schwöbel’s contention concerning “faith” moves in the right direction, and we might take it further by drawing on Pannenberg’s strong trinitarianism. Had Pannenberg drawn further from the deep well of the Spirit’s ecstatic relationship to the believer’s faith (established in ST3), he very well could have justified extended treatment of those “flashes and hints” of the coming kingdom18 that occur on account of the church’s ecstatic life in the Spirit. However, even though Pannenberg had the material resources to do so, this is again an instance in which the distinction between dogmatics and ethics seems to work against his intention to account for God’s reconciling action in such a way that the responsive actions of its recipients are included. These considerations point us in directions that highlight both the contribution of my study and its limitations. As I have shown, Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation is a serious attempt to think about reconciliation as a history both properly divine and human. As such, he works diligently to identify the place of the human recipients of reconciliation, their participation in God’s ongoing work, and the consummation of their destiny. In the future, those engaging Pannenberg’s thought will need to pay fresh attention to the constructive potential of his doctrine of reconciliation, of its concept of divine infinity/holiness and the gains and losses this conceptual framework carries for articulating the relationship between divine and human action within the economy of salvation. I have scattered hints in this direction throughout my exposition, and while I have not worked them out systematically, they at least indicate some ways in which Pannenberg may prove a fruitful ongoing conversation partner for contemporary reflection on God’s reconciling action and for the ways in which the commerce and communion between God and creatures might be conceived. Questions surely remain, and my preliminary explorations into the tenuous relationship between Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation and its ethical 16 17 18

Schwöbel, “Rational Theology,” p. 527. Schwöbel, “Rational Theology,” p. 527. Pannenberg, “Morality, God, and Ethics,” p. 54.

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implications signal directions for study. Further reading in Pannenberg— not least in his more recent publications on ethics19—would create fresh opportunities for constructive and critical engagement with what is by any measure a rigorous, complex, and concertedly interdisciplinary account of God’s reconciling action and its attending consequences for human agency.20 Drawing out Pannenberg’s ethical considerations in these later works would offer possibilities to consider anew the relationship more generally between the dogmatic enterprise and moral theology. The task of witnessing to God’s reconciling action for and within the church but also within the marketplace of ideas is as necessary today as it has ever been. Pannenberg saw his task as offering the church a dogmatics that would do both in equal measures. Today, and tomorrow, the church requires fresh dogmatic theologians whose commitment to their task is characterized by the same rigor, breadth of learning, and intellectual acuity as Pannenberg demonstrates in ST. Those seeking to do so will only benefit from careful reading—and rereading—of Pannenberg’s doctrine of reconciliation and the invitation there offered to imagine, to “see,” how such a God as the Bible presents could “reconcile the world to himself” and “give us the ministry of reconciliation.”

19

20

Wolfhart Pannenberg, Beiträge zur Ethik (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004); Pannenberg, Grundlagen der Ethik: Philosophisch-Theologische Perspektiven (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996). Kam Ming Wong’s study is an encouraging example (Wong, Wolfhart Pannenberg on Human Destiny, esp. pp. 121–57).

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scripture index

Gen 2:7 88, 100 Gen 3:5 21, 191 Gen 6:3 103 Exod 3:14 164, 203 Exod 34:6 66 Job 12:10 88 Job 33:4 88 Job 34:14f 88 Ps 32:6 100 Ps 103:8 66 Ps 104:29 88 Ps 104:30 88, 100 Ps 145:8 66 Isa 45:15 85 Dan 2:34 144 Mt 8:20 32 Mk 6:34 32 Mk 10:45 29 Jn 12:47 180 Jn 14:15-21 72 Jn 16:5-15 72 Jn 17:4 178 Jn 17:5 178 Jn 17:22 178 Rom 3:21-6 134 Rom 3:26 133–4 Rom 4:17 153 Rom 4:25 29n. 54 Rom 5:2 132 Rom 5:5 132, 140–1 Rom 5:9 129 Rom 5:10 23-4, 58, 183 Rom 5:19 58 Rom 6:3 77 Rom 8:3 32–3 Rom 8:9-10 72 Rom 8:11 88, 178 Rom 8:14 126

Rom 8:22 29n. 54 Rom 8:24 129 Rom 8:28-9 95 Rom 8:31 29n. 54 Rom 8:32 58 Rom 11:1 64 Rom 11:25-32 95 1 Cor 3:10-15 179 1 Cor 5:19 204 1 Cor 6:17 79 1 Cor 11:24 29 1 Cor 12:3 105 1 Cor 15:3 29n. 54 1 Cor 15:4 79 1 Cor 15:28-9 95 1 Cor 15:42-6 179 1 Cor 15:44 88 1 Cor 15:50 179 2 Cor 1:9 153 2 Cor 2:12 115 2 Cor 2:45 117 2 Cor 3:17 72 2 Cor 5:8 211 2 Cor 5:14 24, 33 2 Cor 5:18 16, 22, 24, 58, 115, 144, 154–5, 209 2 Cor 5:19 23, 36, 58, 114, 144 2 Cor 5:20 24, 58, 72, 115, 154–5, 211 2 Cor 5:21 24, 29, 29n. 54, 32, 58 2 Cor 9:13 115 2 Cor 10:14 115 2 Cor 12:19 72 2 Cor 13:3 72 Gal 2:20 29n. 54 Gal 3:13 29n. 54, 32 Eph 1:10 95 Phil 2:6 21

231

SCRIPTURE INDEX Phil 2:8 58 1 Thess 1:10 129 1 Thess 2:13 146 1 Thess 5:9-11 129 1 Tim 2:5 76

1 Tim 2:6 29n. 54 Titus 2:4 29n. 54 Heb 5:8-10 58 1 Pet 2:21 29n. 54 1 Pet 2:24 29n. 54

232

subject and author index

action, creaturely/human 5, 6, 14, 15, 35, 50, 55, 151 action, divine creation and 4 differentiated unity of 75 diversity and 57 eternity and 12, 50, 94 field theory and 56 God’s immanent life and 68 human action and 4–5, 14, 27, 35, 47–8, 53, 78, 55–6, 125, 142–3, 156–7, 207, 209, 212 independence and 37 infinity and 156 intratrinitarian relations and 74 Jesus and 58 love and 66 material definition of 51 reconciliation and 12, 27 reconciling 28, 53, 68, 216 self-revelation in history 25 singularity of 50, 57 Trinity and 49, 57, 58 unique character of 4, 62, 213 adoption 126, 127, 133, 141 Althaus, Paul 108 analogy, divine attributes and 65n. 204 Anselm 23, 36 anthropology 101, 165–71 apostles, message of reconciliation and 35 Aquinas, analogy and 65n. 204 Arian controversy 41 Aristotle, theory of motion and 89 aseity, divine 51 Athanasius 41, 42, 100 atonement 18, 68 attributes, divine 65–9

Augustine 42, 78, 97, 127–8 autonomy 54, 97 Baptism 31, 35, 77 Barth, Karl 6, 26–7, 37, 45, 53, 71, 74–6, 105–6, 135, 152, 154, 163 benevolence, as hints of coming kingdom 148 Bernstein, Richard 170 Bible 56, 63 biblical reasoning 10–11 blasphemy, charges against Jesus 33, 34n. 76 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich 155 Braaten, Carl 108 Bradshaw, Timothy 212 bride mysticism 128, 131 Bultmann, Rudolf 105–7 Cappadocian Fathers 41 causality 54, 72, 98 children of God 126 choice, creatures and 99 Christ see Christ-event; Jesus Christ; Son, the Christ-event 19, 30, 32–3, 38, 40, 46, 57–8, 60, 63, 76–7, 87, 109 Christian doctrine, systematic presentation of 11 Christian life 126, 137 Christology, Spirit and 71 church, the action of 121, 138, 145, 211 as body of Christ 148 divine action and 143 dogmatics and 216 eschatology and 149, 151, 213–14 kingdom and 124, 144–5, 147, 149, 151, 154, 156, 213

233

SUBJECT AND AUTHOR INDEX church, the (Cont’d) mission of 14, 114, 122, 139–40, 156 participation and 7, 18, 27, 57, 121, 123, 124, 137, 142, 145, 208, 210, 212–13 as people of God 64 proclamation of 125, 146, 209 providence and 55 reconciliation and 7, 27, 57, 124, 142, 145, 147, 148–9, 208, 211–12, 214 Spirit and 60, 81, 113 Trinity and 14, 139–40, 129 unity of 149 witness of 113 world and 157 classical theism 51 contingency 85, 90, 93, 98, 99, 118, 119 Contra Arianos (Athanasius) 42 Cooper, John 91n. 86 cooperation (in Trinity) 54, 58, 60–1, 74–5, 87, 100 Council of Trent 132–4 creation continuousness of 97 dependence on God 90, 92, 97, 112, 118–19 distinctness of from God 81, 91n. 86, 188, 208 eschatology and 22, 53, 178, 181–2, 185 ex nihilo 119 faithfulness of God to 63 future and 85, 181–2 goodness of 188 involvement of God with 65 openness of 90 providence and 62 reconciliation of 2, 13–14, 180 renewal of 182, 194 Son and Spirit’s work in 87 as subject of divine action 2, 18, 87 time and 85, 93 transformation of 64, 181, 183 Trinitarian doctrine of 86 creative act, eternality of 94 creatures 2–4, 6, 21, 35, 48, 62, 67, 76, 96, 102–3, 144, 182, 193–4, 202, 210

cross, the 23, 24, 59, 60, 69 crucifixion 16, 17–18, 23, 32, 43, 57, 58, 61, 62, 70, 73, 81, 101, 212 Dalferth, Ingolf 60, 62 death 13, 31–2, 36, 37, 38, 88, 103, 148, 171, 176, 191 deification 129, 131, 134–6 determinism 5, 72, 92, 94, 97, 98, 99 discipleship 14, 155 divine image see imago Dei divinization see deification dogmatics, ethics and 5, 137–8, 211, 213–15 Dostoevsky, Fyodor 197–8 Duns Scotus 47, 65 early Christians, confessions of 34 Eastern Orthodoxy 121, 127–8, 131, 133–4, 188 ecclesiology 5, 14, 121 ecstasy 100–2 ecstatic fellowship 81 election 64, 78, 94, 95, 124, 153–4 epistemology 105 eschatology Christ and 172 consummation and 51, 178, 181 creation and 97 divine action and 159 divine fellowship and 57 divine promise and 166 evil and 197 future-oriented 163 hope and 152 human identity and 184 individual and social 171–3, 195 innocent suffering and 198 kingdom and 162 love and 204 ontology and 182–3 pneumatology and 174, 176 salvation and 20, 183 suffering and 199 transformation and 181 truth of 167 universal 171 eschaton 44, 51, 85, 96

234

SUBJECT AND AUTHOR INDEX essence, divine 54, 74 eternality 49, 53 eternity 44, 45, 47, 49, 50, 52, 67, 92–5, 96, 182, 183, 187, 195, 201–2, 213 ethics 137–8, 152, 211, 213–15 Eucharist 145–6, 155–6 evil 69–70, 197–8, 200n. 147, 201, 204 exegesis 29, 132 existentialism 106n. 154 expiation 29, 31 Fackre, Gabriel 154 faith divine promise and 165 as ecstasis 136 history and 60, 106 hope and 153 knowledge and 111 love of God and 141 mediated by God 109, 111 natural laws and 120 reason and 108 revelation and 86 self-distinction and 82 self-grounding and 110 Spirit’s activity in 79, 115 Trinity and 116 as trust 213 union with Christ and 129–30, 134 faithfulness acts of preservation 63 biblical concepts of 65, 171 creation and 63, 118, 144, 195, 209 cross and 70 divine acts 62, 65, 153 as divine attribute 8, 65–6 elect, the, and 154 from eternity 53, 205 historical action and 67, 203 as holding fast 63 hope and 170 immutability and 68 knowledge of 206 love of God and 68 natural laws and 120 promises, divine, and 152, 162, 164, 169

reconciliation and 161 revelation of 164 self-identity of God and 69 Spirit’s work and 116 Trinity and 203 Faraday, Michael 89 Father 36, 41–3, 46, 57, 58, 62, 86–7, 140 fellowship bound by love 139–40 broken 31, 125 creation and 69, 203, 192 destiny and 21, 189 divine likeness in 185 eternal 191 finitude and 196 between God and creatures 36, 50 incorporation of believers into 74 independence and 120 love and 193 participation in divine life and 184 sin and 31 Son exemplifies 77 of Son with Father 67 with Triune God 184 field theory 11, 56, 75, 89, 90, 92, 94, 95, 96, 98, 104, 117, 119 finite, the 48–50, 95, 157, 194, 202 finitude acceptance of 37, 79, 175 choice and 99 destruction of 188 as distinctive of creatures 21, 94 189 divine transcendence and 135 fellowship and 185, 192, 196 as given by God 76, 125 goodness of 6, 192, 194, 208 importance of 188, 195 Jesus and 38, 76 perfection of 192 prayer and 151 preserved 143 refusal of 36 restoration of 80 as sustained by Spirit 119 time and 191 transcendence of 2–3 transformation of 190–1, 195–6

235

SUBJECT AND AUTHOR INDEX foreknowledge, divine 97 forgiveness 198 freedom 12, 48, 54–6, 78, 85, 92, 96–9 future 50, 93, 95, 99, 175, 182 glorification 191–2 Gnosticism 107 God-world relationship 47, 51 Godhead 40–1, 49, 57, 61, 63, 68 gospel 20, 70, 104, 110, 113, 117, 146 grace 130–2, 141 Greeks, ancient 164 Gregerson, Niels Hans 156n. 137 Gregory of Nyssa 47, 66n. 204 Grobel, Kendrick 111 Gutenson, Charles 104–5, 139 Hamilton, Richard 111 Hart, David Bentley 188–9, 194 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 47, 194, 199–200 Hick, John 200 Hilary of Poitiers 1 Hill, Craig 197 history action of God and 25, 54 attributes of God and 65 completion of 51–2, 182, 199, 204 consummation of 173, 176 culmination of 174 eternity and 46 faith and 106 faithfulness of God and 6, 164 God’s involvement in 25, 55–6, 93 Jesus and 58–9, 139 knowledge of God and 8 limits of research and 60 as medium of revelation 66–7 as open 99 of promises of God 163 reconciliation and 8 revelation and 25, 39, 66, 105–7, 110 tragedy and 212 Trinity and 43 Hofmann, Johann Christian Konrad von 23 holiness of God 48, 53

Holy Spirit activity of 14, 15, 42, 72, 79, 88, 100, 117, 160, 172–8, 182, 192 as breath of life 88–9, 100, 103 Christ-event and 61 church and 81, 146 contingency and 97 creation and 48, 81–6, 90, 97, 100, 101, 103–5, 118, 119, 178 death and 88 doctrine of 73, 215 epistemology and 105 eschatology and, 176–8 experience and 115 faith and 115, 215 faithfulness and 119 field theory and 90, 94, 98 future and 95, 98–9 as gift 133, 174, 176 history of Jesus and 114 human spirit and, 102–3 as illuminator 110, 112 independence and 120 judgment and 179–80 knowledge and 105, 114, 117 as origin of life 61–2, 83, 85, 88, 117–18, 178 participation and 81, 100 promises of God and 161, 172 reconciliation and 13, 22, 27, 60, 73, 114, 101, 118 resurrection life and 97, 101, 178 revelation and 107–8, 116–17 salvation and 13, 27, 60, 77, 79, 101, 114, 117, 118, 124 Scripture and 109, 115 theodicy and 200 transcendence of 49 transfiguration and 191, 201 transformation and 128 trinitarian relations of 62, 71, 73, 74–5, 87–8, 177 truth and 110 work of 48, 79–80, 82, 90, 92, 93, 101, 103, 104, 118, 122, 124, 133

236

SUBJECT AND AUTHOR INDEX hope 14, 64, 152–3, 158, 162, 165–7, 170, 176, 203 humanity abilities of 149 actualization of 101 Christ’s work and 28 condition of 171 essence of 182 God and 55, 191 imago Dei and 185–7 individuality and 78 inorganic life and 102 of Jesus 59 morality and God’s action 159 noetic abilities of 114 totality of 182–4 humility 81n Hunsinger, George 134–5 Hütter, Reihold 55 Idealism 84 identity 79, 167, 184 illumination 111 imagination 112 imago Dei 184–7 immanence 52, 54, 94 immediacy, divine 52 immortality 178 immutability, divine 52, 68 incarnation 7, 18, 32, 40, 68, 138 independence 36 accomplishment of 76 actualization of 196 corruption of 96 of creatures 2, 92–4, 188, 205 destruction of 50 divine action and 37, 49 fulfillment of 182 of God 92 participation and 187 preservation of 28, 36, 104, 120 redemption of 21 renewal of 13, 28, 37, 73, 76–8, 80–1, 101, 192 restoration of 30, 79, 82 Son and 87 transformation of 30, 36, 157, 208

individual/individuality 135, 136, 171, 188–9, 196 infinite, the 47–9, 53, 56, 66, 168, 194 infinity 47, 56, 154, 157 Irenaeus 23, 36 Israel 25, 64, 163–4 Jammer, Max 89 Jenson, Robert 45, 131 Jesus Christ actions of 58 as basis of fellowship 175 Christian mission and 138 death of 24, 27–9, 30–5, 38, 57–8, 70, 78, 114 deity and humanity of 38–9 deliverance and 22 finitude and 36–7 glory of 113 historical research and 59 historical revelation of 41, 147 human destiny and 37 identity of 32, 34n. 76 image of 136, 185 imitation of 137 innocence of 34n as judge 135 as mediator 76 message of 115 as Messiah 113 mission of 59 mystery of salvation 148 obedience of 32, 38 as paradigm of humanity 36, 38 passive appearance of 59 pre-Easter life of 59 presence of 115, 143, 146 reconciliation and 35, 60, 209 relationship to eternal Son 39 relationship to God 114, 40 return of 133, 158 righteousness imputed by 135 as second Adam 35, 38 self-offering of 60 self-revelation of 38 self-understanding of 20 solidarity of humanity with 32, 155 Spirit, relationship to 62, 72, 75, 115

237

SUBJECT AND AUTHOR INDEX Logos, divine 130 love 10, 40, 66, 69, 86, 118, 124, 132, 139–42, 151, 161, 191, 193–4, 199, 204–6, 210 Luther, Martin 108–9, 115, 127–8, 130–2, 136, 143, 165 Lutheran theology 155

Jesus Christ (Cont’d) suffering of 31 transformation through 128 universal significance of 33 witness to 1 Jewish judges 34n. 76 Jewish people 33 judgment 179, 195, 200, 201 justification 13, 124–9, 130, 133–4, 138, 204 Kähler, Martin 26–7 Kant, Immanuel 158 kerygma 113 kingdom of God actualization of 145 Christ’s return and 195 church and 124, 145 coming of 13 as completion 7, 46, 73, 148, 157, 182 consummated by God alone 148 consummation of 14, 148 divine origin of 5, 144, 147, 150, 159, 162 establishment of 42 eternity and 94 as ethical action 159 as future event 148, 163, 213 Jesus Christ and 20, 41–3 history and 182 mediated by Christ 159 modern theologians and 158 present and future 172–4 promises of God and 165 secular kingdoms and 144 Son and Spirit and 42 time and 94 knowledge 44, 105, 107, 111 Krasper, Walter 32 law, curse of 32 Leibniz, Gottfried 89 Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim 158 liberation 21, 80 liberation theology 5, 144, 146–7, 147n. 103, 211 life 31, 79–80, 103, 129, 148, 159 Linman, Jonathan 127

Mannermaa, Tuomo 129, 130, 131 material, the 89 McGrath, Alister 69 Melanchthon, Philipp 132, 136, 143 messianic office 58 metaphysics 183 Milbank, John 212 mission of apostles and church 114 Molnar, Paul 38–9, 40, 46, 53 morality 138 Mosert, Christian 190n. 116 music, as metaphor for unity 194 Myers, Benjamin 190n. 116 natural sciences as expressions of divine faithfulness 120 nature, laws of 13, 63, 119, 120 Neie, Herbert 34n. 76 New Testament 58 Nitzsch, C. I. 23 normativity of creation 120 obedience of the Son 58 omnipotence 48 omnipresence 48, 93 ontology 98, 125, 135, 160, 182–3 Origen 100 otherness, God’s 54 panentheism 91 participation in Christ 27, 122, 123, 125–7, 136, 178 of church 5, 57, 145 in divine life 129, 135, 179, 183, 192, 194 in eternal life 14 as gift 123 and grace 150 in salvation 165

238

SUBJECT AND AUTHOR INDEX of Spirit in creation 100 in Spirit’s action 211 past, and eternity 95 see also history Paul, apostle 23, 36, 64, 128 Peters, Ted 53, 106, 120 philosophy and theology 183 Plato 45 Platonic theory 88 Plotinus 45, 49, 189, 194 pneumatology 4, 13, 61, 82, 104, 118, 143, 145, 172, 178, 182, 185 see also Holy Spirit Polk, David 44 power of God as True Infinite 56 praise, eternal 192 prayer 14, 124, 144, 150–2, 154, 162, 207, 211 preservation of creation 65 process theology 43–4, 51–2, 183 promise 153, 162, 165, 166–7, 169–70, 170–2, 174–5, 203, 206 prophecy 106 Protestant theology 129 providence 55, 56, 62 provision 213 purgation of sin 181 purification 31n. 66, 179–80, 179, 195 Quash, Ben 198–9 Rahner, Karl 10, 43, 67, 165 Rahner’s rule 43 rationality, limits of 82, 108 reality, temporal 159 reason 1, 105, 108 rebellion 33, 36 recapitulation theory 23, 36, 200 Reformation 59, 78, 125–7, 132 Reformed theology 154–5 representation 27–9, 35, 37–8 resurrection of believers 178, 196 creation and 178 as divine confirmation 33 as event of justification 33 faithfulness of God and 64 final 190, 194–5 hope and 21, 158, 176

imago Dei and 195 reconciliation and 122 role of 33 Spirit and 61, 72, 113, 179 as transfiguration of earthly life 177 trinitarian framework of 12 retroactive ontology 34n. 76 revelation 2, 5, 25, 40, 66–7, 72–3, 104–7, 112–13, 116–19, 139, 204–5 righteousness 131–5 Ritschl, Albrecht 4, 24, 26, 159 Rogers, Eugene 71 Russell, Norman 135 salvation adoption and 133 biblical meaning of 20, 22 Christ and 125, 127 consummation of 13 divine economy and 206 economy of 60 as ecstatic participation in Christ 129 as eschatologically open 33n. 72 event as representation 28 as fellowship with God 183 as future event 19–22, 166, 175–6 holistic view of 130 Holy Spirit and 173 humanity’s abilities and 153 imago Dei and 186 as present event 19–21, 175 process of 19 reconciliation and 183 sacrifice and 23 transformation in Christ and 127 sanctification 138 satisfaction theories 23 Sauter, Gerhard 17 Schleiermacher, Friedrich 23, 159 Scholasticism 65n. 204, 133 Schwöbel, Christoph 52–3, 215 science, theology and 171 Scripture, 108–9 see also Bible; biblical reasoning self-distinction 81n. 45 self-fulfillment 22 self-identity of God 68

239

SUBJECT AND AUTHOR INDEX self-love 36 Shin, Hyun Soo 77 Shults, Leron F. 11n. 25, 47, 48n. 133, 167–9 simultaneity 201 sin 21, 31, 33, 36, 69–70, 125, 149, 176, 180–2, 189, 191, 196 Son, the 2, 36, 38–9, 42, 48, 57–60, 76, 87, 118, 178, 180 see also Logos, divine; Jesus Christ Son of Man 33 see also Jesus Christ; Son, the soteriology 20, 84, 121, 127, 132, 135 spiration 41 Spirit, the see Holy Spirit spiritual experience 102 Stellvertretung 29–30 Stoicism 89 subjectivism 84, 107 subjectivity 24 substitution 29–31 suffering 198, 199, 201, 214 sufficiency, divine 52 Synoptic tradition 29 Tanner, Kathryn 54 Taylor, Iain 57, 82, 116, 117 theodicy 14, 160, 197, 199–200, 204 Theogeny 68 theology 150, 168–9, 171, 174, 183, 203, 208, 213–14 Tillich, Paul 62 time 44, 49–52, 93–6, 199, 202, 206 timelessness 93, 201 totality 187, 196, 198 tragedy of history 212 transcendence, divine 52–4, 80, 94, 98–9, 102, 133, 135, 142 transfiguration 179–80, 191 transformation 122, 125, 131, 136, 154, 176, 190 Trinitarianism 12–13, 18, 28, 35–6, 38, 52 Trinity acts of 49, 57, 58 church mission and 139 communion of 45

completeness of 43, 67 as creative process 85 development within 44 divine economy and 18, 53 doctrine of 14, 40 eschatology and 190 essence of as love 140–1 eternal enjoyment within 44 eternity and 178 faith and 116 faithfulness and 68 glorification and 177–8 human participation in reconciliation and 38 humanity and 194 immanence and 39, 41 immanent and economic 15, 38–9, 43, 45, 46, 53, 68, 205 infinity and, 157 love and 139, 206 as multiple unity 57 mutual dependence 42 mutual self-distinction 40–1 process of the world and 46 reconciliation and 40 relations of divine persons in 41, 53 salvation and 43 self-identity of God and 68 Spirit’s work and 74 unity of 45, 173 True Infinite 47 trust 136 truth 11, 102, 110 Tupper, Frank 17, 104 union 132, 133, 135 unity 49, 55, 67, 131, 136, 149, 152, 154, 169, 193 Webster, John 4 Weir, Johannes 159 Wenz, Gunther 77 Wesley, John 104 Whitehead, Alfred North 43–4, 183 Word, the, and the Spirit 109 worship 149–50, 182

240

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