Chapter 1
In
Chapter 1, Pannenberg wants to explore the way in which truth needs to be the
theme of any exploration into Christian teaching. If one reads this chapter
carefully, the result will be a thorough grasp of the approach to the
theological task that Pannenberg will develop throughout the three volumes. For
example, “theology” refers to the divine as the all-embracing founding
principle of all being. In Plato, illumination is the result of dialectical
reasoning. He will want to stress that God makes possible the knowledge of God
through revelation. Truth is the theme of theology, and not just the training
of the leaders of the church. Theology is not simply a “practical” or “moral”
discipline. Therefore, theology has a deep ambiguity in that it may be nothing
more than human talk and therefore not be theology at all. Theology, he thinks,
must include the act of advocating for the truth of Christian discourse about
God. As such, it must be able to formulate its teaching in assertions or
statements that make sense and that one can test. This testing can occur in a
cultural and political context that allows the free expression of ideas. Theology
involves making “eschatological” statements of truth in that only the
revelation of God at the end of history will demonstrate their truth. He
accepts the debatable quality of truth as a fact of human temporality, and
stresses the role of the future in the verification of the truth. Even with
such freedom and pluralism, emerging consensus and/or the teaching office of
the church cannot guarantee truth. In fact, the Protestant emphasis is that
continual exploration into the truth of Christian teaching includes exploring
again its basis in the revelation of God. However, in our time, we cannot
affirm the unity, completeness, and sufficiency of Scripture in the same way
that earlier generations of Christians could do. The primary “subject-matter”
of scripture is the act of God in Jesus of Nazareth. We keep exploring the
meaning of this act, but any statements made in the history of the church are
provisional. We need to keep testing them. We test them against Scripture in
such a way that the proclamation of the church can confidently express the
revelation of God. The role of a systematic presentation of Christian teaching
is that it presents the unity of Christian teaching, consistent with rational
knowledge. The frustration that science and philosophy have with Christianity
in this regard is that the biblical writings have the character of a witness or
testimony to what God has done at particular moments in history, rather than a
rational discovery of universal truths that one can find in science and math.
For him, the explorations of Michael Polanyi and Thomas Kuhn in the area of
science are helpful reminders that even the theories of science are not as
objective as some scientists like to think. For Pannenberg, any presentation of
Christian teaching cannot assume its truth. Rather, the truth one sees in
Christian teaching must cohere with all that is true. Such an exploration will
disturb the tradition, even if one does the exploration in a positive way. To
focus on the notion of testing in such matters, the criteria of the test of its
truth is consensus and coherence. The formation of a judgment in this area must
be open to better future insights. He acknowledges that since the
Enlightenment, the Protestant notion of the inspiration and authority of the
Bible is questionable. Thus, an early attempt to deal with the variety of
witnesses and styles within the Bible was that of God accommodating to the
particular time and place. Although this notion was useful for the new
teachings of science, it also opened the door for the idea that God might
communicate error at a particular moment. War in the Old Testament in contrast
to Jesus of Nazareth in the New Testament is an example of accommodation.
Further, when we have conflicting affirmations between Christianity and science
or history, the question of credibility arises. For Pannenberg, theology needs
to take seriously the explorations of modern thought, but theology must also
challenge modern consciousness. Thus, explorations of history must move beyond
an anthropocentric worldview and become open to the possibility of redemptive
acts of God in history. This simply means openness to the witness of Scripture,
recognizing the character of the biblical writings as witness to particular
moments of history. His reference here is also to notions of hermeneutics and
history that involve bringing Dilthey, Gadamer, and Hegel together. His concern
is that theology, through Schleiermacher, Bultmann, and Barth, has focused on
the subjective act of faith or experience. The danger here is irrational
fanaticism. He thinks that in the case of Barth this was a particularly tragic
embarrassment for theology. His concern, which he shares with Paul Tillich, is
that a private decision or experience cannot mediate truth and certainty. Of
course, experience and faith are important, but they need clarification and
confirmation. Any decision of faith, any experience, participates in the
finitude of all human experiences, and therefore is conditional. To reassert,
no one who seeks to present Christian teaching can claim a prior guarantee of
its truth in the inspiration or authority of scripture, the witness of the
Spirit, the act of faith, or the experience of the believer or the theologian.
He refers to W. W. Bartley, a student of Karl Popper, who combined the notion
of an open society with that of critical thought. He says theology must not
“retreat to commitment.” The point of presenting Christian teaching is its
claim to truth, yet another place he agrees with Paul Tillich. This means that
its presentation must include an apologetic element along the way. The truth of
God as Creator, Reconciler, and Redeemer, needs to cohere with the
non-theological knowledge of humanity, the world, and history. The general themes of theology will arise from
philosophical anthropology, from philosophy, and from science. Such a
presentation of Christian teaching needs to include the recognition that the
reality and revelation of God are debatable. He stresses that “my truth” ceases
to be such if it does not have universal validity. To engage the theological
task is a risk, for one must commit oneself to not having a foregone conclusion
as to the truth of Christian teaching. One needs to let the truth of Christian
teaching shine forth. This means that we acknowledge truth that already has an
ontological unity and coherence prior to our epistemological judgments about
it. The formation of Christian teaching in its affirmations and statements will
come to fulfillment in the process of time and participate in finitude. He
returns to Dilthey and Hegel to stress that truth has a history, for as long as
time progresses we cannot determine the true meaning of things and events. We
will need to see if Pannenberg can avoid the criticism of such views, namely,
that the historicity of truth is not tenable, for the “doctrine of historicity”
is not a doctrine one can formulate without denying itself. In other words, the
doctrine is itself “historical” and capable of transcendence by some new
“truth.” Will he be able to hold to his view of truth that will make it
impossible for him to assert consistently that anything he says conforms to
reality?[1]
For Pannenberg, Truth is the “whole,” as Hegel put it, but truth is not a finished
product. Christian teaching regarding the end means the future is always open.
The Christ event is proleptic, anticipating the “end” that God will determine.
The “end” occurs in a provisional and preliminary way in Jesus. History is
unfinished and therefore the deity of God is not evident to all. Paul put it in
I Corinthians 13:12 that our knowledge in the course of history is partial. We
conduct the theological task with humility. The verification of any theological
system belongs to the nature of its assertions about God as the all-determining
reality. Each statement or assertion will belong to a system of theoretical
formulations. They have the form of hypothesis, as do all statements regarding
meaning. In such matters, one might want to read R. Carnap, The Logical Structure of the World (1928),
A. J. Ayer, Language, Truth, and Logic, 1945,
L. Wittgenstein, Tractatus, and C. J.
Lewis, An Analysis of Knowledge and
Valuation, 1946. Its basis is anticipation of the clarity that will come at
the end. This means that present explorations of the 2000-year tradition of the
church will call for re-evaluation as theology seeks successful integration
with present experiences of meaning. He considers any systematic presentation
of Christian teaching as a model that takes account of scripture, the
tradition, and contemporary explorations into meaning. In fact, theology
formulates the totality of meaning from the point of view of its unifying unity
in the reality of God. A systematic presentation of Christian teaching is in
search of a new model that integrates existing theories and evidence. Theology
will need to explore historical events in the context of the totality of
meaning implicit in the event. Theology must also deal with the philosophical
question of reality in a way that meets the criteria that apply to
philosophical statements. He will accept Hegel as philosophical model, largely
because he presented the unity of truth in the context of its historical
development in such a way that truth remains reliable. Any model presented is a
provisional decision regarding the totality of reality. Testing the model in
light of the Christian tradition in light of systems of meaning of present
experience identifies why such decisions are never final. A theological hypothesis
needs to express the implications of the biblical traditions, connect with
reality as a whole, be capable of integration with the appropriate area of
experience, and have explanatory force within current theological discourse.
Whether the model is tenable depends on whether the world, humanity, and
history are recognizable in the model. He is inviting his readers to make that
judgment about the model he presents in these three volumes. Such a model can
only anticipate the truth of God, for which faith is waiting. He will show
himself quite willing to recommend reforms of Christian teaching. As he ends
the chapter, he says he will reject the notion of a “prolegomena” to his work. Yet,
he does think that before he can begin the explication of Christian teaching,
he will need to explore some preliminary matters. Thus, the form of his
presentation will not begin with the reality of God. Rather, he will begin with
human notions, words, and concepts. God as a reality needs careful
clarification. He will begin with a discussion of the concept of God, proofs of
God and religion. He will explore notions of revelation. After that, he will
discuss specific Christian teaching, always keeping before him the debatable
notion of the reality of God.
A brief discussion
of how Pannenberg differs with other theologians might be helpful at this
point. Famously, Karl Barth has a two volume prolegomena in Church Dogmatics. The title lets the
reader know the quite different approach. Dogmatics will focus upon the
self-examination by the theologian of truth of the teaching of the church about
God. While he thinks theology is a science, he wants it clear that it conducts
its enquiry into truth in a different way with other pursuits, particularly
contrasting his approach with Schleiermacher. The test of Christian talk is its
conformity to Christ, a conformity of which we await future verification. The
theologian can only listen to Jesus Christ and work in obedience to Christ. He
rejects the notion of “modernist dogmatics,” of which Pannenberg would be a
representative, due to the danger of abandoning the Lord of the church, Jesus
Christ. For him, the theme of the prolegomena is simply and clearly sacred
scripture. Under the theme of the doctrine of the Word of God, he will discuss
that the word of God is the criterion of dogmatics. He famously and rightly
offers his notion of the threefold form of the word of God as preached, written,
and revealed in Jesus Christ. Dogmatics is successful only as it rightly
discerns Scripture. He will then discuss the revelation of God as the Triune
God, as the incarnation of the Word, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. He then
discusses Holy Scripture as a witness to revelation. He concludes his
prolegomena with a discussion of the proclamation of the church as the church
that hears and teaches the Word. Thomas Oden will move directly to a discussion
of God, representing an approach closer to Barth. Robert W. Jenson wrote a two
volume systematic theology that Pannenberg reviewed positively. His Part 1
includes a prolegomena with three chapters. He modestly proposes to lay out his view of the
subject matter of systematic theology (the interpretation of the “old word” of
the gospel in a “new word” in light of this culture), the norms of theological
judgment (scriptural, but including its devotional and confessional
expression), and the identification of God (in the biblical narrative). He
refers positively to the insights of Pannenberg along the way.[2]
Paul Tillich will also reject a prolegomena. He will introduce his systematic theology.
He wants to balance the common ground he senses with the modern situation with
faithfulness to the kerygma. He admits that the theologian has already made a
decision to work within a commitment to what determines the theologian
ultimately. Theology deals with that which concerns humanity ultimately. The
apologetic of the theologian is to prove the Christian claim at this point. Theology
must deal with the question of reality as a whole. As to the sources of
systematic theology, the Bible is the original witness, but the theologian
includes interaction with tradition and the history of religion. The primary
source, however, is the New Being as shown in Jesus Christ. The method of
theology is that of correlation with other forms of human thinking, committing
himself to thinking holistically.[3]
Gordon Kaufman and Peter Hodgson will also omit a prolegomena.
Comments
Post a Comment