God's Truth is Marching On: Pannenberg's Theology as the Precondition to Liberation from Structural Evil

[Another very early essay of mine I rediscovered.  I wish I had pressed this further--and this may be the topic of future research--but I am not the first to notice that Pannenberg's animadversions to Liberation Theology seem in some sense to fly in the face of his own theo-logic which seems absolutely ripe for such developments.  I did not develop the idea in any pragmatic sense in this essay, but I do note how Pannenberg at the very least has a very crucial place in what might be termed the "prolegomena" of Liberation thought.  I think future dialogue with Liberation and Black theology, along with the cultural analyses of Radical Orthodoxy and others like MacIntyre, Taylor, and Gillespie, are in order (in fact this is the current trajectory of my own research).  Again, whatever its major defects, I hope this essay can in some way benefit my readers! Enjoy!]

Though the German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg is often lauded as one of the 20^th century’s most notable theologians, he is seldom recognized for his theology’s ability to lend itself to the establishment of concrete praxis to fight structural evil.  In fact, to cite one criticism, Pannenberg’s theology is “too intellectual in orientation,” which mitigates, both a priori and in practice, “the interruptive character of Christian faith in history and in society.”[1]  Moreover Pannenberg has been a vocal critic of Liberation theology—in 1977 criticizing Gustavo Guttierez’ understanding of liberation in a series of lectures given at Yale[2]—and more specifically has maintained a strong opposition to philosophical or sociological insight derived from Marxist systems.[3]  As a result this has often curbed the initial enthusiasm for appropriating Pannenberg’s theology for purposes of liberation, but also in some ways tarnished Pannenberg’s reputation as a theological progressive.[4] 

It is the contention of this essay, however, that despite some deep conceptual differences which rightly keep Pannenberg from being labeled a Liberation Theologian—and perhaps also provide some needed correctives—there are also striding parallels which offer a deep and fecund theoretical wellspring to themes of humankind’s liberation from structural evil.  To demonstrate this, this essay will briefly outline three themes of Pannenberg’s theology—Trinity, Jesus and Pannenberg’s “eschatological ontology,” and the Church as the proleptic Kingdom of God and its relationship to Pannenberg’s anthropology—with an eye regarding their emancipatory implications.

I. Trinity, Infinity, and the Pannenberg Principle: God Marches with Us Towards God.

            In this section we will be looking at specific portions of Pannenberg’s doctrine of the Triune God in order to develop some initial liberation themes.  Why is Pannenberg’s doctrine of the Trinity important in this sense?  As this brief section progresses it will be shown that Pannenberg’s understanding of the Triune God, claims not only that God is with us in the form of Christ, but has also radically bound God’s-self to the preservation and liberation of creation without violating its freedom by incorporating all of creation into God’s life in the form of the coming Kingdom of God.  To put it as starkly as possible, God makes room in Himself for us—to borrow Robert Jenson’s phrase[5]—and we are now being proleptically drawn into the fullness and restorative love of the roominess in the Triune relations:

In his creative, redeeming, and sustaining arrival, God’s future demonstrates his power.  This can be clarified by reference to the Trinitarian language about God that is common in the Christian community…The Trinitarian distinctions are based on the difference between future and present…the coming God as the God of love whose future has already arrived and who integrates the past and present world, accepting it to share in his own life forever…The Trinitarian doctrine is the ultimate expression for the one reality of the coming God whose Kingdom Jesus proclaimed.[6] 

Early on in Pannenberg’s career Trinitarian theology was present, but even then only in a nascent form,[7] as Pannenberg was still dealing with other theological themes, such as history,[8] anthropology,[9] and his insistence on the universality of theology’s ability to shed light on reality.[10]  In 1981 however, in an autobiographical essay for the Christian Century, Pannenberg announced his desire to “produce a dogmatic presentation more thoroughly Trinitarian than any example I know of.”[11]  What Pannenberg produced was a complex and beautiful systematic unfolding of the doctrine of the Trinity,[12] which affected every level of his theology.  For our purposes the most important thematic emphasis is the Triune God’s relation to the world.  Hence we will examine the concept of the reciprocal relations amongst the Father, Son, and Spirit in the Trinity from the perspectives of Pannenberg’s concept of “true infinity,”[13] and the “Pannenberg’s Principle.”[14]

To Pannenberg the only way to give a coherent account of the Christian God is to reference the Trinitarian relations, which Pannenberg regards as “concrete monotheism.”[15] In this way God’s attributes (e.g. omnipotence, omnipresence etc…) are nuanced by being seen as a manifestation of the interconnections between the reciprocal communion of Trinitarian persons.[16]  An example of this modification of attributes (and one key for our purposes here) is how the doctrine of the Trinity modifies Pannenberg’s understanding of God’s infinity, and hence how Pannenberg sees the Trinity as key to balancing God’s transcendence and His immanence.  As early on as 1972, though not explicitly formed, Pannenberg wanted to insist the “finite and infinite, temporal and eternal, are not merely opposed to each other.”[17]  As Pannenberg’s theology progressed, the concept of the true infinite emerged, so that Pannenberg wanted to say (following Hegel), that strictly speaking,

the infinite is not that which is without end but that which stands opposed to the finite, to what is defined by something else…to be finite is to be in distinction from something and to be defined by the distinction.  The relation of something to something else is an immanent definition of the something itself…the infinite is truly infinite only when it is not thought of merely as the opposite of the finite, for otherwise it would be seen as something in relation to something else and therefore as itself finite.[18]

            However, this definition by itself is somewhat nebulous and seems to be simply an abstract and empty assertion as Philip Clayton observed critically of Pannenberg: “…the principle of ontological distinction in this differentiated intermingling [of the true infinite] remains unclear, leaving the basis for God’s ‘otherness,’ from creation in question.”[19]  As an answer to this, and in relation to the concept of “true infinity,” Pannenberg offers what is perhaps his clearest summary statement, noting “the infinity of God has to be conceived in terms of being transcendent as well as immanent in the reality of the world…The Christian Trinitarian doctrine can be considered as determining the question of how these forms of God’s presence in the world are related to his transcendent existence.”[20] 

In other words the Trinity is the best explanation for the human experience of being in an immanent historical relationship with God without God ceasing also to be transcendent, it is the best way to say, truly, God is with us.[21]  God’s infinite holiness does not merely oppose the profane world, “it also enters the profane world, penetrates it, and makes it holy.”[22]  Concretely,

God does not encounter the apostate creature with power and holiness.  He is present with it at its own place and under the conditions of its own existence…This takes place through the eternal 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.  We are thus to view the incarnation of the Son as the supreme expression of the omnipotence of God…[23]

            This interaction between the Trinity and Pannenberg’s concept of the true infinite is modified further, however. In elaborating that the Persons in the Trinity in their mutual reciprocity and distinction, Pannenberg notes “the relations between the persons are constitutive not merely for their distinctions but also for their deity.”[24]  This assertion, which has become fairly standard in Trinitarian theology, is taken a step further by what Ted Peters calls “a startling argument,”[25] and what Roger Olson has labeled as the “Pannenberg Principle.”[26]  Stated in various ways throughout his career,[27] the Principle’s axiom states in its most epigrammatic form: “God’s deity is His rule.”[28]  That is, God’s deity is linked to His necessary rule over the world.  Creation was not necessary to the self-sufficient Trinity in eternity, but now that the world has been made, its existence is not compatible with God’s deity apart from God being Lord over this creation.[29]  God has bound Himself to this world in the Son:

In the handing over of lordship from the Father to the Son, and its handing back from the Son to the Father, we see a mutuality in their relationship…By handing over lordship to the son the Father makes his kingship dependent on whether the Son glorifies Him and fulfils his lordship by fulfilling his mission…his own deity is now dependent upon the Son.  The rule of the kingdom of the Father is not so external to his deity that he might be God without his kingdom.[30]

            With this principle, Pannenberg notes that in the crucifixion of Christ, not only the deity of Christ, but also the deity of the Father He proclaimed are in question.  In this next section, we shall see how the death and resurrection of Christ play into the concept of Trinity and the Pannenberg Principle just described, and how they fill out Pannenberg’s doctrine of Salvation and its relation to an “eschatological ontology.”

II. Jesus, Ontology, and the Church as the Proleptic Kingdom: God is Ahead of Us.

            “Because God is the Creator of the world,” writes Pannenberg, “where he reigns his creatures attain to the goal of the destiny that is constitutive of their nature.”[31]  This statement gives the appropriate weight to the concept of Pannenberg’s Christology, and hence his Soteriology, when we note that for Pannenberg—following Jewish apocalypticism where the resurrection was seen as reserved for the end times—if Jesus has been resurrected then the end of the world has begun in him.[32]  Hence in Christ, creatures attain “the goal of their destiny.” In binding Himself to the world, God has proleptically verified His own identity in the raising of the crucified Christ, which as a confirmation of God’s identity is simultaneously God’s affirmation that He is our God.[33] 

The message of the resurrection of Christ meant that in this one human the eschatological hope for the righteous had occurred, the end of history has come in to history,[34] and hence salvation is seen to have come in Christ in that “Jesus grants or promises community with himself and thus participation in eschatological salvation…and insofar as man’s destiny in the resurrection life has been revealed in Jesus himself.”[35]  This has provided the forgiveness of sins, that Jesus opens us up to the future.[36]  More fully expressed:

Because Jesus' resurrection confirmed his earthly claim to authority by the fulfillment of the eschatological future in his own person, he no longer just anticipated the judgment of Him with whom the eschatological reality begins as he did in his earthly activity, but he himself has now become in person the reality of the future eschatological salvation...Differently expressed, through the resurrection, the revealer of God's eschatological will became the incarnation of the eschatological reality itself; the ultimate realization of God's will for humanity and for the whole of creation could therefore be expected from Him.[37]

            From this conception of the eschatological in-breaking of the end, Pannenberg begins to form an ontological conception of reality.  As the proleptic occurance of the end of the world “it is possible to find in the history of Jesus an answer to the question of how ‘the whole,’ of reality and its meaning can be conceived without compromising the provisionality and historical relativity of all thought.”[38]  That is, though Christ Himself is our salvation, it still has a future element of “not yet.”  Christ reveals to us that God is the infinite horizon of history, which can only be understood in relation to God opened up in this relation to Christ: “The future reaches into history to draw history toward itself as history’s goal.”[39]

            This understanding evolves into Pannenberg’s difficult “eschatological ontology,” that is to say, Pannenberg believes the future (rather than the past) has ontological priority over the present—the future confronts the present and releases it from its bondage to its own inherent possibilities.  The parts of reality can only be understood against the totality of relationships in which they stand, and hence only against the whole of reality.  But the whole of reality can only be understood as future.[40]  This is the ontological structure revealed in Christ.  The future is seen as the “field of the possible,”[41] which gives space and potency to the present as continuous gift.  But this is not an abstract “future,” instead we should think of the absolute future of freedom as the very nature of God.[42]  God is himself “the power of the future,”[43] or we might say that God has “futurity as a mode of being.”[44] 

            This, combined with Pannenberg’s understanding of the Trinity outlined in section one, is a potential boon for liberation themes.  In relation to Christ, humankind is not a prisoner of past or present structures of oppression, for God’s power is “an unpredictable new thing hidden in the womb of the future.”[45]  Pannenberg terms this the contingency of events: “If…connections of events are grounded in the faithfulness of the free God then we do not have to conceive a continuity of something enduring from the past to the future…rather we have to think of events…which are contingent…linked backward and referred to what has happened.  By means of this backward-linking the continuity of history is constantly established…without losing its contingency.”[46]  In fact the human itself is not a perpetual structure either, but a historical structure constantly re-given itself through God’s opening it up beyond its own immediate horizon.[47]  In fact spontaneous human constructions of imagination are, according to Pannenberg “essential anticipations of the future,”[48] as the human is opened up by God’s infinite horizon.

            Moreover, this futurity is inherently social—and hence political—in the form of the church as the proleptic Kingdom of God: “the relation to the future of God’s reign…is constitutive for the church’s nature…In content the hope of God’s rule is politically defined, for God’s kingdom will fulfill our social destiny in a fellowship characterized by peace and justice.”[49]  In this sense the church, as the proleptic community of the eschaton, invites others to participate in this freedom from bondage and decay, in reciprocal service and loving submission to one another.  In this sense the “future already becomes present,” when the community exists in a state of submission to God’s future.[50]  Its ability to serve others, and to relativize the structures of the world, exposing them as temporary and ephemeral, comes from the object of our hope in resurrection.[51]  In fact resurrection itself—as opposed to concepts of the immortality of the soul, or reincarnation—precisely affirms the irreplaceable value of each person in their finitude, which Pannenberg argues created a revolution in the history of the concept of the human person, along with development of the imago Dei and Trinitarian theology’s concept of person.[52]

            III. Critique and Conclusion

            Through this essay several themes have been emphasized regarding the potential affinity of Pannenberg’s theology for concerns of liberation.  He has a robust Trinitarian theology which envisions God as truly with us, binding Himself to fulfill and restore the world, for both our sake and the sake of His Lordship.  This Triune God, who is with us, is also ahead of us—posing a constantly new and unexpected future which liberates us by gathering us into a community whose politik is mutual, loving service in submission to the coming reign of God.

            However, like every theology it has its flaws.  Pannenberg, for instance—unlike his contemporary Moltmann—spends very little time attempting to understand the implications of the cross theologically.  In fact the cross in Pannenberg’s theology is occasionally viewed as simply a negative moment that poses in the sharpest way possible the identity of Christ, which is then retroactively confirmed in the Resurrection.  On can see from the work of Moltmann, or Guttierez, that the cross plays a massive role regarding themes of liberation.  That said, it is my hope that Pannenberg will be appropriated for tasks of liberation, so that the poor and oppressed can be restored and see that the heartbeat of divine love encompasses and renews all of history.[53]

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[1] J. A. Colombo, An Essay on Theology and History: Studies in Pannenberg, Metz, and the Frankfurt School (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1990) p.46; C.f. Paul Molnar “Some Problems with Pannenberg’s Solution to Barth’s ‘Faith Subjectivism,’” Scottish Journal of Theology 48 (1995): 322.  Molnar notes Pannenberg’s system appears to rely on the human perception of coherence, and so despite Pannenberg’s intent reduces Christian theology into the strictures of the a priori limits of human subjectivity—rather than interrupting them—and as such has little chance to interrupt the status quo.

[2] Stanley Grenz, “Pannenberg on Marxism: Insights and Generalizations.” The Christian Century Sept. 1987 pp.824-826.

[3] E.g. his treatment of alienation in Wolfhart Pannenberg Anthropology in Theological Perspective (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985) p.267ff.

[4] Gary M. Simpson “Whither Wolfhart Pannenberg? Reciprocity and Political Theology.” The Journal of Religion vol.67 no.1 pp.33-49.

[5] Robert W. Jenson Systematic Theology Vol. 2: The Works of God (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) pp.33-34.

[6] Wolfhart Pannenberg Theology and the Kingdom of God, ed. Richard John Neuhaus (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969) pp.70f.

[7] This key systematic turn has been observed by a number of commentators. E.g. Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen The Trinity: Global Perspectives (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007) p.128; Stanley Grenz Rediscovering the Triune God: The Trinity in Contemporary Theology (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004) p.93; Christaan Mostert, God and the Future: Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Eschatological Doctrine of God (New York: T&T Clark, 2002) p.185ff; Roger E. Olsen, “Wolfhart Pannenberg’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” Scottish Journal of Theology 43, no.2 (1990): 175-176.

[8] Wolfhart Pannenberg ed. Revelation as History (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1968).

[9] Pannenberg, Anthropology in Theological Perspective.

[10] Wolfhart Pannenberg, Theology and the Philosophy of Science trans. Francis McDonagh (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976).

[11] Wolfhart Pannenberg “God’s Presence in History,” Christian Century 11 (March 1981): 263.

[12] Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology III vol. trans. Geoffery W. Bromiley (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s Publishing Company, 1991-1998) 1:249-448.

[13] For a more in depth analysis of the relationship between the Trinity and the “true infinite,” in Pannenberg’s theology, see: F. LeRon Shults The Postfoundationalist Task of Theology: Wolfhart Pannenberg and the New Theological Rationality. (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s Publishing Company, 1999) pp.98-110.

[14] For an analysis of the “Pannenberg Principle,” see: Mostert God and the Future pp.183-236.

[15] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology 1:335.

[16] Ibid 1:397

[17] Shults Postfoundationalist Task of Theology p.99.

[18] Pannenberg Systematic Theology 1:397

[19] Philip Clayton, “The God of History and the Presence of the Future.” The Journal of Religion 65 no.1 (June 1985): pp.98-108.  Quote at p.105.

[20] Wolfhart Pannenberg, “The Christian Vision of God: The New Discussion on the Trinitarian Doctrine,” Asbury Theological Journal 46, no.2 (Fall 1991): 35.

[21] Pannenberg Systematic Theology 1:357, 415.

[22] Ibid 1:400.

[23] Ibid 1:421. Emphasis added.

[24] Ibid 1:323.

[25] Ted Peters God as Trinity: Relationality and Temporality in Divine Life (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1993) p.136.

[26] Olson, “Pannenberg’s Doctrine of the Trinity,” p.199.

[27] E.g. Trinity and the Kingdom of God pp.55-56.

[28] Ibid.

[29] Pannenberg Systematic Theology 1:313

[30] Ibid.

[31] Ibid 3:580

[32] Wolfhart Pannenberg Jesus: God and Man 2^nd Ed. trans. Lewis L. Wilkens and Duane A. Priebe (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977) p.66ff.

[33] Stanley Grenz Reason For Hope: The Systematic Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s Publishing Company, 2005) p.165.

[34] Pannenberg Jesus: God and Man p.65-66.

[35] Ibid p.193.

[36] Pannenberg Systematic Theology 2:332.

[37] Pannenberg Jesus: God and Man p.367.

[38] Wolfhart Pannenberg Basic Questions in Theology vol.1 trans. George U. Kehm (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970) p.181.

[39] Cornelius A. Buller The Unity of Nature and History in Pannenberg’s Theology (Maryland: Littlefield Adams Books, 1996) p.119.

[40] Wolfhart Pannenberg Metaphysics and the Idea of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s Publishing Company, 1991) pp.22-42.

[41] Pannenberg Systematic Theology 2:99.

[42] Wolfhart Pannenberg The Idea of God and Human Freedom, trans. R.A. Wilson (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973) p.112ff.

[43] Pannenberg Theology and the Kingdom of God p.63

[44] Wolfhart Pannenberg Basic Questions in Theology vol.2, trans. George H. Kehm (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971) p.242.

[45] Wolfhart Pannenberg What is Man? Contemporary Anthropology in Theological Perspective trans. Duane. A. Priebe (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1970) p.42.

[46] Pannenberg Basic Questions in Theology vol. 1 p.75f.

[47] Pannenberg Anthropology in Theological Perspective p.240

[48] Pannenberg Theology and the Kingdom of God p.140f.

[49] Pannenberg Systematic Theology 3:98ff.

[50] Ibid.

[51] Ibid 3:568ff.

[52] Ibid 3:564

[53] Ibid 3:646