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Some Problems with Pannenberg's Solution to Barth's ‘Faith Subjectivism’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Paul D. Molnar
Paul D. Molnar
Affiliation:
Stjohn's University8000 Utopia Parkway Jamaica New York 11439
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Extract

Among recent reconstructions, Wolfhart Pannenberg's systematic theology is one of the most influential attempts to overcome authoritarianism and subjectivism. Without presenting a thorough development of Pannenberg's theology here, I shall discuss the relationship between philosophy and theology by analyzing Pannenberg's critique of Barth's ‘subjectivism’ and ‘authoritarianism’. I argue that by grounding theological knowledge in a version of Heidegger's concept of anticipation, Pannenberg has not escaped his own religious subjectivism. Thus theological meaning inevitably results from a philosophy of existence grounded in an anticipatory grasp (Vorgriff) of the totality of reality which is presumed to refer to the reality of God.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 48 , Issue 3 , August 1995 , pp. 315 - 339
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1995

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References

1 Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Basic Questions in Theology. Collected Essays, Volume 1, trans. Kehm, George H. (Phila.: Fortress Press, 1970)Google Scholar, hereafter: Basic Questions, 1, 156f. Pannenberg is quite consistent in this approach; e.g., in connection with revelation he argues: ‘experience modifies this presupposed knowledge’, in Systematic Theology Volume I, trans, by Bromiley, Geoffrey W. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company), 1991Google Scholar, hereafter: Systematic Theology I, 206.

2 Systematic Theology I, 127.

3 Ibid., 128.

4 Ibid., 36. See also Basic Questions, 1, chaps. 4 and 5.

5 Systematic Theology I, 42ff.

6 Ibid., 44–5. Emphasis mine.

7 Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Anthropology in Theological Perspective (hereafter: Anthropology), trans. O'Connell, Matthew J. (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1985), 16.Google Scholar

8 Systematic Theology I, 299; ‘the image of the Trinity in the human soul’ replaces revelation, 304.

9 Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, 4 vols. (hereafter: CD.). Vol. 2, pt. 1: The Doctrine of God, ed. Bromiley, and Torrance, , trans. Parker, et al. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1964)Google Scholar, 43. Also CD. 1, 1, 128.

10 C.D. 1, 1, 21.

11 Barth carried this thinking through in C.D. 4 considering the church's oneness, holiness, catholicity and apostolicity as grounded in Christ's active mediation of himself through the Spirit in the world: ‘True Christians, were and are the men assembled in it [the church] who are thereto elected by the Lord, called by His Word, and constituted by His Spirit…’ (4, 1, 696). Pannenberg differentiates his Christology from Barth's by noting that Barth linked the trinity to Christology by means of the doctrine of predestination whereas he links the two by making the incarnation intrinsic to Jesus' eternal Sonship: ‘the kenotic movement of the Son in becoming incarnate is taken as already characteristic of his eternal relation to the Father rather than involving a renunciation of his divine identity,’ (Pannenberg, W., An Introduction to Systematic Theology [hereafter: Introduction], (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 68).Google Scholar This is critical because by not grounding God's action ad extra in his eternal but free decisions to create, reconcile and redeem the world (as Barth had done), Pannenberg is compelled to blur the distinction between the immanent and economic Trinity. As a result Pannenberg is led to deduce the nature of God acting in history both from our experiences within history and from his general ideas of infinity and love.

12 C.D. 2, 1, 187. When Barth argues that Deus non est in aliquo genere he means that we ‘lack the capacity both to establish His existence and to define His being’. Knowing God in faith means that ‘we cannot conceive God of ourselves’. By grace we may conceive him in Jesus Christ, but not of ourselves. By contrast Pannenberg takes Thomas' belief that ‘God does not belong to a genus’ (Systematic Theology I, 372) to mean that we can speak of God in general terms as they are qualified by adding words like infinite. Barth argues that God cannot be classified or included with what he is not without ending in pantheism. God's reality cannot be defined by reference to a reality other than God; such an assumption (as in Kant) makes God part of the genus of creation. And God does not share his being with human being but enters into a relationship with human being without dissolving divine and human being into a common being.

13 C.D. 1, 1, 453–4.

14 Ibid., 460–1.

15 Ibid., 462. ‘Knowledge of God is … enclosed in the bosom of the divine Trinity’, 2, 1, 205.

16 Ibid., 465.

17 C.D. 2, 1, 15.

18 Ibid., 197–8.

19 E.g., Barth extends this idea when treating justification and sanctification in CD. 4, 2, esp. 528.

20 Cf. Systematic Theology I, 388.

21 Ibid., 50.

22 Ibid., 52.

23 Ibid., 53. This also appears in Basic Questions, 2, 102ff.

24 Ibid., 61.

25 Ibid., 94.

26 Ibid., 189.

27 Ibid., 61 and 298.

28 Ibid., 196.

29 Grenz, Stanley J., Reason For Hope: The Systematic Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990, Foreword).Google Scholar See The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg: Twelve American Critiques, with an Autobiographical Essay and Response, Braaten, Carl E./Clayton, Philip, Editors, (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1988)Google Scholar, hereafter: The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg, chap. 4 ‘Anticipation and Theological Method’ by Philip Clayton and 320ff. (Pannenberg's response). Also Pannenberg, , Metaphysics and the Idea of God, trans. Clayton, Philip (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990)Google Scholar, hereafter: Metaphysics, chap. 5, ‘Concept and Anticipation’.

30 The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg, 319.

31 Basic Questions, 1, 168–9.

32 Metaphysics, 96. ‘Inquiry behind the kerygma, behind the New Testament texts to the historical Jesus himself, is theologically unavoidable,’ (Basic Questions, 1, 149).

33 Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Jesus–God and Man, trans. Wilkins, Lewis L. and Priebe, Duane A., (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977), 34–35.Google Scholar See Basic Questions, 1, 141ff. and 154f. for a discussion of the relationship between historical and theological hermeneutic. Clearly, Jesus' human history and our anticipation of meaning become the norms whereby we assess the tradition; thus there is no real difference between historical and theological hermeneutic.

34 Ibid., 320–1. This is repeated in Systematic Theology I, 331–2. See also my ‘The Function of the Immanent Trinity in the Theology of Karl Barth: Implications For Today’ in SJT, 42, 3, (1989) and ’Reflections On Pannenberg's Systematic Theology in The Thomist., 58, 3, 1994.

35 Systematic Theology I, 263ff. This eventually leads to the adoptionist view that ‘the difference between Father and Son in God's eternal essence, depend upon, and take place in, the fact that God as Father is manifest in the relation of Jesus to him …’ (Ibid., 311).

36 Pannenberg, Introduction, 28–9. Cf. also Basic Questions, 2, 18.

37 Systematic Theology I, 186.

38 Basic Questions, 2, 103.

39 Systematic Theology I, 54. Cf. also Basic Questions, 1, 5ff.

40 Ibid., 54–5. Emphasis mine.

41 Basic Questions, 2, 22. See also Systematic Theology I, 56.

42 Systematic Theology I, 65–7.

43 Ibid., 261–3.

44 Pannenberg, Introduction, 32. See also Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Christianity in a Secularized World, (New York: Crossroad, 1989), 54.Google Scholar

45 Ibid. Cf. also Systematic Theology I, 263ff. and 304ff.

46 Olson, Roger E., ‘Wolfhart Pannenberg's Doctrine of the Trinity’ SJT, 43, 2, (1990), 188CrossRefGoogle Scholar; 202ff.

47 Systematic Theology I, 310–1.

48 Ibid., 46–7. Emphasis mine. See also Ibid., 158.

49 Cf. C.D. 1, 1, 406ff. For Barth revelation as reconciliation in the Son/Word tells us that we resist grace and that knowledge of revelation is a miracle which cannot be deduced or verified.

50 Systematic Theology I, 155.

51 Ibid., 157.

52 Ibid., 49.

53 Cf. C.D. 4, 3, 72–3.

54 Systematic Theology I, 352–3.

55 Ibid., 354. Emphasis mine. It is no accident that, in his theological anthropology, Pannenberg finds Herder's analysis quite compelling and that Barth characterized Herder as ‘The master in the art of circumventing Kant’. Cf. Pannenberg, , Anthropology, 58ff.Google Scholar and Barth, , Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century, (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1973), 316.Google Scholar

56 Basic Questions, 1, 201.

57 Systematic Theology I, 71.

58 Ibid., 359.

59 Rahner, Karl, Theological Investigations I, trans. Ernst, CorneliusO.P., (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1965)Google Scholar, Theos in The New Testament, 98. Cf. also Molnar, ‘Is God Essentially Different From His Creatures? Rahner's Explanation From Revelation’, in The Thomist, 51, 4, 1987.

60 Basic Questions, 2, 112.

61 Systematic Theology I, 332. Emphasis mine.

62 Ibid., 311ff.

63 E.g. Ibid., 367, 376–7.

64 Ibid., 329.

65 Ibid., 390.

66 Ibid., 419.

67 Ibid., 368. When Pannenberg applies this thinking to God's action within history the mutual conditioning noted becomes clear. Not only does the Father depend upon the Son but as the Son's being is in some sense determined by history, Jesus' experience constitutes God's being as well.

68 Ibid., 190.

69 Ibid., 68, 344.

70 Ibid., 349.

71 Cf. Ibid., 68f.

72 Ibid., 79.

73 Basic Questions, 2, 17Off.

74 Systematic Theology I, 222.

75 Ibid., 237.

76 Ibid., 227.

77 Ibid., 205.

78 Basic Questions, 2, 195.

79 Ibid.

80 Systematic Theology I, 227. Emphasis mine.

81 Ibid., 229.

82 Ibid., 235–43.

83 Ibid., 243.

84 Ibid., 235 and 251. Consequently Pannenberg infers that ‘Jesus Christ as the direct Word of God is to be integrated into this plan [of salvation] and understood in the light of it’, Ibid., 236. For Barth if Christ can be integrated into any plan, then his deity has already been denied.

85 Ibid., 243.

86 Ibid., 244.

87 So while he admits that the Son was with God from eternity (Ibid., 264), he will not say Jesus is equal to God since the Spirit is God's mode of presence in Jesus and of Jesus's sonship (267f.).

88 Ibid., 251.

89 Ibid., 419.

90 Ibid., 253.

91 Ibid., 253–4.

92 Ibid., 263.

93 Ibid., 386. Emphasis mine.

94 Ibid., 388. Emphasis mine. Thus Pannenberg corrects Cremer's idea of God's love with the idea of the true infinite saying ‘God himself is characterized by a vital movemen t which causes him to invade what is different from himself…’ (Ibid., 400). This compromises God's freedom since the God who loves is not caused by anything to create, reconcile and redeem the world; he is the free divine subject of these events. This leads to the modalism Pannenberg theoretically rejects: ‘the divine essence overarches each personality’ (Ibid., 430) and ‘love is a power which shows itself in those who love … Persons do not have power over love. It rises above them and thereby gives them their self-hood … This applies especially to the trinitarian life of God,’ (Ibid., 426f.).