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The Ongoing Christology of Wolfhart Pannenberg

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2014

Elizabeth A. Johnson
Elizabeth A. Johnson*
Affiliation:
The Catholic University of America
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Abstract

The ongoing Chrislology of Wolfhart Pannenberg is a rich locus for discerning several major currents in the field of contemporary Christology, for not only does it reflect certain prevalent emphases but it has in fact initiated them. It is the purpose of this article to examine how that is in fact the case.

First it is shown how Christology played a major role in the early Pannenberg's overall theological synthesis, forming the key source of his original perception of the structure of reality and of reality's relationship to God. Next, Christology itself is focused upon. Three aspects of Pannenberg's Jesus— God and Man are highlighted as having been widely influential, viz., the method of proceeding “from below” with the history of Jesus providing the starting point; the emphasis on the resurrection; and the stress on Jesus' dedication to the Father (rather than to the Logos) as the basis for understanding his unity with God. The third section of the article traces Pannenberg's recent development in Christology, particularly as reflected in a series of (untranslated) essays in the last decade. Advances in his understanding of method and the growing role of anthropology and Trinitarian doctrine are noted. The article closes with a look to the future, including Pannenberg's own projection of the direction he will be taking in Christology.

Type
Articles
Information
Horizons , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , Fall 1982 , pp. 237 - 250
Copyright
Copyright © The College Theology Society 1982

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References

1 Revelation as History (New York: Macmillan, 1968).Google Scholar Translated by Granskou, David from Offenbarung als Geschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1961).Google Scholar

2 “Dogmatic Theses on the Doctrine of Revelation,” Revelation as History, pp. 123-58. For analyses of this position, see Braaten, Carl, “The Current Controversy on Revelation: Pannenberg and his Critics,” Journal of Religion 45 (1965), 225–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fuller, Daniel, “A New German Theological Movement,” Scottish Journal of Theology 19 (1966), 160–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Robinson, James, “Revelation as Word and History,” in Theology as History, ed. Robinson, James and Cobb, John B. (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), pp. 1–100Google Scholar; and the doctoral dissertation by Priebe, Duane, History and Kerygma: A Study of the Concept of Revelation in the Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg (School of Theology at Claremont, 1965).Google Scholar

3 Robert North has made a convincing and fascinating case for a significant similarity between the positions of Pannenberg and the First Vatican Council on the necessity of a natural certitude about revelation as preliminary to faith. In spite of the differences between them, he concludes that both are alike in insisting on “the superiority of objective to subjective factors in legitimating the act of faith” (“Pannenberg's Historicizing Exegesis,” Heythrop Journal 12 [1971], 377–400).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Foreword to the first German edition of Jesus—God and Man (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968), p. 12.Google Scholar

5 Jesus—God and Man (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968).Google Scholar Translated by Priebe, Duane and Wilkins, Lewis from Grundzüge der Christologie (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1964).Google Scholar The second edition of the English translation of this book (Westminster, 1977) contains no major revisions of the original text, but does include the “Afterword” to the fifth German edition (pp. 399–410) in which Pannenberg assesses the debate over the book and dialogues with his critics.

See assessments by Cobb, John B.. “Wolfhart Pannenberg's Jesus—God and Man,” Journal of Religion 49 (1969), 192–201Google Scholar; Parker, Thomas, “Faith and History: A Review of W. Pannenberg's Jesus—God and Man,” McCormick Quarterly 22 (1968), 43–82Google Scholar; Tupper, E. Frank, “The Christology of Wolfhart Pannenberg,” Review and Expositor 71 (1974), 59–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Basic Questions in Theology, I and II (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970 and 1971).Google Scholar Translated by Kehm, George from Grundfragen systematischer Theologie: Gesammelte Aufsätze (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1967).Google Scholar

See also other volumes of Pannenberg's collected essays, especially Theology and the Kingdom of God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969)Google Scholar; The Idea of God and Human Freedom (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973)Google Scholar; Faith and Reality (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977)Google Scholar; and Grundfragen systematischer Theologie: Gesammelte Aufsätze Band 2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980).Google Scholar

7 Pannenberg studied and criticized the classical doctrine of the analogy of being in his inaugural dissertation, Analogie und Offenbarung. Eine kritische Untersuchung der Geschichte des Analogiebegriffs in der Gotteserkenntnis (Heidelberg, 1955, unpublished).Google Scholar His basic line of thought is also presented in the essay “Analogy and Doxology,” Basic Questions in Theology Vol. I, pp. 211–38.Google Scholar

8 See Schweitzer, Albert, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, trans. Montgomery, W. (New York: Macmillan, 1961).Google Scholar

Pannenberg's eschatological orientation has led him to criticize American process theology for its lack in precisely this area: the thesis of a constitutive significance of the future for what is present, as suggested by the term anticipation or prolepsis, does not lie within Whitehead's field of vision. Therefore, the Christology of someone like John B. Cobb, for example, is not totally adequate, for it does not present the Kingdom of God “in the dynamic of its coming, as the field of force of the divine future determining the present” (“A Liberal Logos Christology: The Christology of John B. Cobb,” in John Cobb's Theology in Process, ed. Griffin, D. and Altizer, T. [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1977], pp. 133–49, at 139).Google Scholar

9 Pannenberg's position is worked out in detail in the Basic Questions volumes and in Jesus—God and Man.

10 “Der Neue Mensch,” in Gegenwart Gottes: Predigten (München: Claudius Verlag, 1973), p. 140.Google Scholar

11 See above, n. 5.

12 For example, Neie, Herbert, The Doctrine of the Atonement in the Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg (New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1979)Google Scholar; Fiorenza, Frances S., “Critical Social Theory and Christology: Toward an Understanding of Atonement and Redemption as Emancipatory Solidarity,” Proceedings of the Catholic Theological Society of America 30 (1975), 63–110.Google Scholar

Pannenberg has persisted in defending his approach to the death of Jesus insofar as it managed to demonstrate the integral connection of Jesus' death with his ministry and the validity of the logic of early Christian interpretations of that death.

13 For example, Burhenn, Herbert, “Pannenberg's Argument for the Historicity of the Resurrection,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 40 (1972), 368–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dobbin, E., “Reflections on W. Pannenberg's Revelation Theology,” Louvain Studies 4 (1972/1973), 13–37Google Scholar; Thomas Parker (see n. 5).

While acknowledging the difficulties of his position, Pannenberg has continued to maintain it, arguing in a later essay that at the very minimum an historical event can be said to have its roots in time and space. Since the resurrection of Jesus had its starting point in time (somewhere between the death of Jesus and his appearance to the disciples) and in space (in Palestine, not in America), it can thus be considered an historical event (“Dogmatische Erwägungen zur Auferstehung Jesu,” Kerygma und Dogma 14 (1968), 105–18Google Scholar; reprinted in Grundfragen systematische Theologie Band 2, 160–73 [hereafter cited as GST 2]).Google Scholar

14 Jesus—God and Man, pp. 21-37 and passim.

15 See Rahner, Karl, “The Two Types of Christology,” Theological Investigations, 13 (New York: Seabury, 1975), 213–23.Google Scholar Rahner too endorses the option for a Christology from below in the light of the contemporary situation, although within a different methodological framework.

16 An emerging consensus among biblical exegetes is summarized by Fitzmyer, Joseph, “Jesus the Lord,” Chicago Studies 17 (1978), 75–104.Google Scholar

17 Jesus—God and Man, pp. 53-114.

18 Among others: Wiederkehr, Dietrich, Moltmann, Jürgen, Rahner, Karl and Kasper, Walter (Jesus—God and Man [1977 edition], p. 402, n. 5).Google Scholar

19 Jesus—God and Man, pp. 133-58.

20 Ibid., pp. 324-64.

21 “Person,” Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, V (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1957), 230–35.Google Scholar Later development of this concept is found in “Person und Subjekt,” Neue Zeitschrift für systematische Theologie 18 (1976), 133–48Google Scholar; reprinted in GST 2, 80–95.Google Scholar

22 For example, Betz, Hans, “The Concept of Apocalyptic in the Theology of the Pannenberg Group,” Apocalypticism (Journal for Theology and Church 6), ed. Funk, R. (New York: Herder & Herder, 1969), 192–207Google Scholar; McDermott, Brian, “Pannenberg's Resurrection Christology: A Critique,” Theological Studies 35 (1974), 711–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 See above, n. 5.

24 Kerygma und Dogma 21 (1975), 159–75Google Scholar; reprinted in GST 2, 129–45.Google Scholar

25 “Worwort,” GST 2, 10.Google Scholar Essay referred to is “The Christological Foundation of Christian Anthropology,” in Humanism and Christianity, ed. Geffré, Claude (New York: Herder & Herder, 1973), pp. 86–100.Google Scholar

26 Pannenberg has also worked this out in other essays, including What Is Man? Contemporary Anthropology in Theological Perspective (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970)Google Scholar; “The Question of God,” in Basic Questions in Theology Vol. II, 201–33Google Scholar; “Anthropology and the Question of God,” in The Idea of God and Human Freedom, 80-98.

27 “Tod und Auferstehung in der Sicht christlicher Dogmatik,” Kerygma und Dogma 20 (1974), 167–80Google Scholar; reprinted in GST 2, 146–59.Google Scholar

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30 “Vorwort,” GST 2, 8.Google Scholar

31 The following is based on conversations with Pannenberg in Munich in May, 1981.