"Theological Problem Meme": Wolfhart Pannenberg

For me, there is no doubt in my mind, when asked the question: "Who is your favorite theologian?" what the answer is: Wolfhart Pannenberg. I began reading the first volume of Pannenberg's systematic theology in highschool, after I had desperately sifted through various "conservative," apologetic and theological books, wanting to maintain at least some intellectual credibility for my faith in the rigors of an (ultra) liberal climate (interestingly enough, the makings of a strange combination were brewing, as the other Systematics I 'discovered' in highschool was Paul Tillich's. Now THERE would be a wierd synthesis--if possible--should Pannenberg's thought not eventually pulled greater weight for me). Needless to say, despite some "in-house" (meaning: already Christian) recommendations from some self-proclaimed "theologians," I found most attempts at outlining and/or defending the Christian faith by standard conservative fare like Geisler, McDowell, Grudem, and crew to be only "stopgaps": some of their arguments gave my less-informed, but passionate, atheist or agnostic critics something to chew, and it gave me a breather, but ultimately I agreed very little with the actual theologies backing the so called "apologetic."

My story isn't so much to say that I used Pannenberg as an "apologist" or even that I really understood him (or Tillich!) that much in highschool. The answer to both is unquestionably, no, I didn't. Nonetheless I was fascinated by Pannenberg's ability to be both historically erudite in what he would call the "history of the transmission of the traditions," and so philosophically and theologically informed: in other words I was hooked. Fortunately about two years ago, before I entered into my current location as a student at Multnomah Bible College, I decided to re-read the first and second volumes of the systematics (and am wanting to re-read the second volume once again before embarking on the 650 page behemoth that is the third volume) and my fascination with Pannenberg was rekindled, especially now that I can (for the most part) understand him. Nonetheless, like all men and women, Pannenberg's thought is not "perfect" (I'm not really even sure what that means, to be "perfect" at theology...) What follows are some observations regarding weaknesses in Pannenberg's thought. None of the arguments are original to me, and in fact most of what appears here I posted on Halden's blog (myself being blog-less at the time...) but they are the few that I find insightful and are actually arguing with Pannenberg on his own terms. Michael-Westmoreland-White, on his blog at http://levellers.wordpress.com/2007/04/17/theological-problem-meme/ spoke of his reticence to critique one of his favorite theologians John Howard Yoder, because he didn't want to join the ranks of bloggers who attempt to critique Yoder, but ended up, in his opinon, either misinterpreting Yoder or being just plain wrong. I'm not sure if there is any ethical issues about taking someone else's candor and making it your own...but I'm doing it anyway: I hestitate to critique Pannenberg, because so often critiques of Pannenberg are serious misunderstandings, or just plain wrong. With that said I feel that these critiques represent what are actually real potential concerns in Pannenberg's program.


1.) The first basic critique, corresponds to a thesis that pervades the wonderful book, Between Cross and Resurrection: A Theology of Holy Saturday, by Alan Lewis. I am borrowing one of Lewis' many critiques of Pannenberg: the logic of the retroactive significance of the resurrection. That the resurrection gives "retroactive signficance" to the prior life and death of Christ is, of course, something that Pannenberg has championed since the inception of his particular theological system. Indeed his first methodological book, Jesus: God and Man, is really a 400+ page unpacking of the basic logic behind the claim that Jesus is God the Son, the impetus of which Pannenberg finds in the Resurrection. Indeed, for Pannenberg, the Resurrection is the locus of Christianity due to its signficance, given its verification of Christ by God, and, especially in this early work, it really stands as the logical backbone for the validity of all Christian claims. The incisive critique of Lewis, one which I accept, is that despite Pannenberg's painstaking and tireless exposition of the retroactive significance of the resurrection, he goes into almost no detail regarding a specifically "reconceptualized" metaphysical understanding of God in the death of the Son on the Cross. Now, of course, it could be argued (and I would to a certain extent) that this isn't in fact a "lapse" in Pannneberg's theology or logic, so much as it is a deficiency that arises as a product from Pannenberg's systematization itself. So the moment of a critique of Lewis' critique would have to be that the deficiency is there not because Pannenberg is inconsistant, but precisely because he is consistent in his understanding (something I would like to unfold more, but this isn't the time to do it). At any rate, Pannneberg is nearly silent regarding what it means for the Son to die (at least along the lines that Lewis would have him take it). Pannenberg sees Christ's death more in juxtaposition to the resurrection than as a potential metaphysical bounty, and indeed (again, due to the rigors of his system) he shies away from speaking, with Jungel and Hegel, of the death of "God" on the cross, which he terms a "reverse monophysitism." (Systematic Theology vol.1:314) Again, this critique should ultimately also encompass an exposition of what Pannenberg sees ultimately occuring in the cross, which is the self-distinction of the Son from the Father, and so the beginnings of a trinitarian theology of self-giving. But what can ultimately be said is that Pannneberg is silent in an area that arguably could be the turning point of Christian metaphysics (which Lewis takes it to be).



2.) Halden, at his initiation of thie "worst-theological-problem meme." spoke of Jenson "being weakest where he is strongest," and, liking the phrase, I decided to use it in regards to Pannenberg's eschatology: he is indeed weakest where he is strongest. Pannenberg speaks of the "whole" of history illuminating the individual parts, so that the totality will give every finite thing its essence. Pannenberg's understanding of "being," or the "essence"-whatness of objects to be unfolding through the nexus of relationships in which they stand. That is to say that things are not "what they are" in isolation from their relation to other objects. Hence "time" and the unfolding of the relations themselves are not exterior to the essence of the objects, but are in fact the only thing proper to them. Ultimately to understand anything, Pannenberg surmises, there must be an ultimate "horizon" that is beyond the part/whole dialectic, and this is, understandably, "God." God is the unifying unifier of history who gives it its totality and completion, which Pannenberg draws (arguably) pretty convicing parallels to apocalyptic expectations of Judaism and early Christianity: the wholeness of essence can be given to people and the world only at the end, when everything stands in relation to everything else because God has "arrived" and illuminated the whole. The weakness of this position is that Pannenberg seems to have a fairly static conception of what the eschaton will actually "be" for us. Pannenberg surely doesn't want to eliminate the ultimate distinction between we finite humans and the "truly infinite" God, but he does indeed seem to imply that "all things" will be revealed at the end due to the wholeness of the totality of what is revealed. James K. A. Smith, calling this idea an "eschatological immediacy" of hermeneutics, critiques Pannenberg precisely at this point, noting that this "human" appears to be a "giant," of the intellect and so precisely not a human at all (The Fall of Interpretation p.64). I think there is indeed ways to modify Pannenberg's general conception, so that there is not a "static" totality, but what we might call an "authenticity" or "purity" to our continued ascent in knowledge. David Bentley Hart speaks of the continuing fulness of analogical/metaphorical language, that proceeds ever forward towards fuller understanding precisely in its numerous differentiations (Beauty of the Infinite, p.314) and Robert Jenson numerously speaks of the event of the Spirit as Love, which "when [it] arrives, neither does life thereby become static nor do we need to move on from love to maintain liveliness. The coming of love is an event that can occur and be followed by no other, wthout thereby compelling the lovers to cling to something finished and merely enduring. For love is itself openness to unbounded possibility." (Systematic Theology vol.1 p.220) which is somewhat akin to the direction I would take Pannenberg.


3.) A third critique is regrading Pannenberg's dismissal of the virgin birth. I'm still close enough to my conservative roots that I affirm the virgin birth, but my problem is not so much that Pannenberg denies it (though, of course, that is a problem from my standpoint) bu that the arguments he uses, at least to me, seem so unworthy of Pannenberg. To start I'll simply quote from Jesus: God and Man to summarize Pannenberg's arguments and positions: “The legend [of the virgin birth] probably emerged relatively late in circles of the Hellenistic Jewish community. Paul and Mark were as little familiar with it as was John. Paul even designated Jesus as the one born of a woman in order to express his equality with other men. The concept of the virgin birth tends in exactly the opposite direction; it attempts to find precisely Jesus’ uniqueness expressed in the mode of his birth…To be sure Paul is familiar with the notion of a birth without masculine assistance. He mentions it with respect to Sarah (Gal. 4:23) However he does not apply it typologically to Jesus, but rather to Christians as heirs of the promise (Gal. 4:28)…In its content, the legend of Jesus’ virgin birth stands in an irreconcilable contradiction to the Christology of the incarnation of the preexistent Son of God found in Paul and John. For, according to this legend, Jesus first became God’s Son through Mary’s conception. According to Paul and John, on the contrary, the Son of God was already preexistent and then as a preexistent being bound himself to the man Jesus.” ( Jesus: God and Man. 2nd Ed. p.142-143.)

Unlike other areas of his dogmatic approach, Pannenberg approaches the virgin birth as if it had already been decided that it was a legend. Indeed from the very beginning he calls it “The legend…” (Jesus 141). While Pannenberg does proceed to unpack actual arguments, they are all displayed under the shadow of that dubious initial adjective. The incautiousness of this beginning uncharacteristically reappears throughout the polemic. I shall proceed point by point.
“Paul and Mark are as little familiar with it as was John.” This is such a basic exegetically fallacy, namely the "argument from silence" (note the scary quote marks) that it is really bizarre that it appears anywhere, let alone in Pannenberg. Just because it is not mentioned, or not developed as a theological theme, or both, does not suggest ignorance regarding the topic, nor does it suggest a redacted and late interpolation into an originally un-virgin-birthed story. In fact the argumentative force of this exegetical note is precisely nill: the notable absence tells us only that John, Paul, and Mark didn’t use it in their respective works, not one iota more. A parallel complaint could be marshaled against the admittedly interesting typological/allegorical use of Sarah by Paul: where one might expect an extended reference to some sort of “typology” or concept regarding Jesus’ virgin birth, Paul speaks of Christians. Two major things need to be noted about Pannenberg’s reading of Galatians: 1.) Again this is a modified form of the argumentum a silencio. It tells us only that Paul chose not to use the virgin birth as part of his argument. 2.) Nor are we left merely with the assertion that Paul simply chose not to use the virgin birth (especially in relation to Sarah) because the basis of the argument is regarding “the children of promise” who are now adopted because of Christ. We who were once “held in bondage under the elemental things of the world,” (Gal. 4:5) are now freed from this deterministic tyranny because God sent his Son to break this slavery (4:4-7). The virgin birth, despite whatever prima facie correlations to the promise of Sarah, would have no real bearing on Paul’s argument, which is not per se directed to “birth without masculine assistance” or even “miraculous birth,” (Pannenberg's terms, Jesus God and Man, p.142) in terms of actual “birthing,” but of the spiritual regeneration or “new birth” (to use Johannine terms) afforded to us by Christ. Indeed unless we were to anachronistically (and bizarrely) read some sort of “traducianism,” into Paul’s theology, thereby necessitating the virgin birth to free Christ from bondage to sin, there is no need to mention the virgin birth in Paul’s argument. If anything it would confuse the entire logic that Paul is attempting to put forward.
And perhaps the most irritating portion of Pannenberg’s argument is that he claims the virgin birth stand in irreconcilable tension with the “high” pre-existence Christology of Paul and John. Yet this entire argument hinges on the concept that the virgin birth stories intend Jesus as only Son of God according to his birth, not before. But Pannenberg’s peculiar reading of the virgin birth, so necessary to his argument of polarity between the two Christologies, is supported by neither pericope, where such a concept is simply not given by the text. Pannenberg falls victim to circular reasoning. In fact, it is difficult to even call this circular reasoning, so much as a blatant assertion.




4.) My last critique will (hopefully) be brief. One of the most frequent complaints is that Pannenberg has not really conversed to any significant degree, with "post-modern" philosophy or theology. Some accuse him of being a foundationalist, while others accuse him of being a coherentist, and others dismiss him as a Hegelian (that one particularly irks me). F. LeRon Shults wrote an excellent book outlining a "post-foundationalist" model of epistemology and hermeneutics that I think does a great job of vindicating Pannenberg from most of these complaints (re: "The Postfoundationalist Task of Theology: Wolfhart Pannenberg and the New Theological Rationality"). Nonetheless a weakness does arise simply because Pannenberg does not dialogue with the Derridas and the Foucoults of the "post-modern" enterprise. Whereas Pannenberg wants to argue, e.g., that anthropology is an incredibly important arena for theology to converse with, a lot of "post-modernisms" are now questioning the validity even of supposedly "secular" anthropological-philosophical enterprises, let alone individual theories. Indeed there is little to no interaction with the so called "yale" school notables (however innapropriate that name might be) Hans Frei and George Lindbeck, or any others. Pannenberg, unfortunately, just didn't seem to take the "post-modern" situation as seriously as many would like, despite the fact that he is not as "modernist" as many would take him to be. This is very infortunate, as it surely would have been interesting to see Pannenberg turn his great intellect toward explicit responses regarding the "big names" of "post-modernism."