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Reason for Hope: The Systematic Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg
Since the 1960's, Wolfhart Pannenberg has been recognized as one of the world's foremost Protestant theologians. Currently writing his magnum opus , a systematic theology in three volumes, Pannenberg intends to develop an ecumenical theology which will carry significance for Christians of all denominations. In this volume Stanley Grenz, who studied under Pannenberg in Munich, brings to the English-speaking audience the fullest available exposition of Pannenberg's developed theology, presented within the context of the debate his ideas have generated.
- GenresTheology
324 pages, Paperback
First published December 14, 1989
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49 people want to read
About the author
Stanley J. Grenz
54 books33 followersStanley James Grenz was born in Alpena, Michigan on January 7, 1950. He was the youngest of three children born to Richard and Clara Grenz, a brother to Lyle and Jan. His dad was a Baptist pastor for 30 years before he passed away in 1971. Growing up as a “pastor’s kid” meant that he moved several times in his life, from Michigan, to South Dakota, North Dakota, Montana and Colorado.
After high school Stan began his undergraduate studies in 1968 with the idea that he would become a nuclear physicist. But God had other plans for him, and in 1971, while driving home to Colorado after a visit with his parents in Oklahoma, he received a definite call into full time Christian ministry.
In 1970-1971 Stan traveled in an evangelistic youth team where he met Edna Sturhahn (from Vancouver, BC), who then became his wife in December, 1971. Both Stan and Edna completed their undergraduate degrees at the University of Colorado and Stan went on to receive his M. Div from Denver Seminary in 1976, the same year in which he was ordained into the gospel ministry. During the years of study in Colorado he served as a youth pastor and an assistant pastor. From Denver, Stan and Edna moved to Munich, Germany where Stan completed his Doctor of Theology under the mentorship of Wolfhart Pannenberg. Their son, Joel was born in Munich in 1978.
During a two-year pastorate (1979-1981) in Winnipeg, MB, where daughter Corina was born, Stan also taught courses at the University of Winnipeg and at Winnipeg Theological Seminary (now Providence Seminary). His full time teaching career began at the North American Baptist Seminary in Sioux Falls, SD (1981-1990). Those years were followed by a twelve-year (1990-2002) position as Pioneer McDonald Professor of Baptist Heritage, Theology and Ethics at Carey Theological College and at Regent College in Vancouver, BC. From 1996 to 1999 he carried an additional appointment as Professor of Theology and Ethics (Affiliate) at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, Lombard IL. After a one-year sojourn as Distinguished Professor of Theology at Baylor University and Truett Seminary in Waco, TX (2002-2003), he returned to Carey in August 2003. In fall 2004, he assumed an additional appointment as Professor of Theological Studies at Mars Hill Graduate School, Seattle WA.
Stan has authored or co-authored twenty-five books, served as editor or co-editor for two Festschriften, contributed articles to more than two dozen other volumes, and has seen to print more than a hundred essays and an additional eighty book reviews. He had plans to write many more books. Two more of his books will appear in print within the next year.
In addition to writing and lecturing all around the world, Stan loved preaching. He admitted to “breaking into preaching” in some of his lectures. He served as interim pastor of several congregations and as guest preacher in many churches. He loved the Church, both locally and worldwide.
Stan wholeheartedly supported and encouraged his wife Edna in her pastoral ministry, her studies and in the enlargement of her ministry gifts. At First Baptist Church, he played the guitar and trumpet in the worship team and sang in the choir. He was proud of his children and their spouses, Joel and Jennifer and Corina and Chris, and delighted in his new granddaughter, Anika. Stan was a friend and mentor to many, always encouraging people to strive to new heights.
As a theologian for the Church Stan wrote from the deep, interior vision of the sure hope that we would enter into the community of God in the renewed creation. He articulated the reality of this new community as the compass for Christian theology: 'Now the dwelling of God is with human beings, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.' (Rev. 21:3
After high school Stan began his undergraduate studies in 1968 with the idea that he would become a nuclear physicist. But God had other plans for him, and in 1971, while driving home to Colorado after a visit with his parents in Oklahoma, he received a definite call into full time Christian ministry.
In 1970-1971 Stan traveled in an evangelistic youth team where he met Edna Sturhahn (from Vancouver, BC), who then became his wife in December, 1971. Both Stan and Edna completed their undergraduate degrees at the University of Colorado and Stan went on to receive his M. Div from Denver Seminary in 1976, the same year in which he was ordained into the gospel ministry. During the years of study in Colorado he served as a youth pastor and an assistant pastor. From Denver, Stan and Edna moved to Munich, Germany where Stan completed his Doctor of Theology under the mentorship of Wolfhart Pannenberg. Their son, Joel was born in Munich in 1978.
During a two-year pastorate (1979-1981) in Winnipeg, MB, where daughter Corina was born, Stan also taught courses at the University of Winnipeg and at Winnipeg Theological Seminary (now Providence Seminary). His full time teaching career began at the North American Baptist Seminary in Sioux Falls, SD (1981-1990). Those years were followed by a twelve-year (1990-2002) position as Pioneer McDonald Professor of Baptist Heritage, Theology and Ethics at Carey Theological College and at Regent College in Vancouver, BC. From 1996 to 1999 he carried an additional appointment as Professor of Theology and Ethics (Affiliate) at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, Lombard IL. After a one-year sojourn as Distinguished Professor of Theology at Baylor University and Truett Seminary in Waco, TX (2002-2003), he returned to Carey in August 2003. In fall 2004, he assumed an additional appointment as Professor of Theological Studies at Mars Hill Graduate School, Seattle WA.
Stan has authored or co-authored twenty-five books, served as editor or co-editor for two Festschriften, contributed articles to more than two dozen other volumes, and has seen to print more than a hundred essays and an additional eighty book reviews. He had plans to write many more books. Two more of his books will appear in print within the next year.
In addition to writing and lecturing all around the world, Stan loved preaching. He admitted to “breaking into preaching” in some of his lectures. He served as interim pastor of several congregations and as guest preacher in many churches. He loved the Church, both locally and worldwide.
Stan wholeheartedly supported and encouraged his wife Edna in her pastoral ministry, her studies and in the enlargement of her ministry gifts. At First Baptist Church, he played the guitar and trumpet in the worship team and sang in the choir. He was proud of his children and their spouses, Joel and Jennifer and Corina and Chris, and delighted in his new granddaughter, Anika. Stan was a friend and mentor to many, always encouraging people to strive to new heights.
As a theologian for the Church Stan wrote from the deep, interior vision of the sure hope that we would enter into the community of God in the renewed creation. He articulated the reality of this new community as the compass for Christian theology: 'Now the dwelling of God is with human beings, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.' (Rev. 21:3
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September 25, 2020
Grenz, Stanley. Reason for Hope: The Systematic Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg.
Wolfhart Pannenberg was the most impressive and powerful theologian since Barth, and he was superior to Barth in every way. And while he was a better communicator than Barth, not everything he said is immediately clear. And not everything he wrote came across with equal power. His doctrine of God and defense of the resurrection will serve the theology student quite well for decades. His ecclesiology, by contrast, while not necessarily wrong, lacks that same power.
Pannenberg’s most baffling claim concerns the futurity of God. What I think he means, and this is what Grenz suggests, is that the demonstration of God in its finality can only occur at the end of history, making all previous claims provisional in character. Jesus’s resurrection and announcement of the kingdom is a proleptic moment of that futurity. In short, it is an epistemological, not an ontological claim.
On Truth
In the biblical understanding truth isn’t just a static realm of changeless ideas. “Rather, it is what shows itself throughout the movement of time climaxing in the end event, which is anticipated in the present” (Grenz loc. 207).
On God
Pannenberg’s trinitarianism is probably the most exciting locus in his project. He bypasses the debates on whether we should begin with the one essence or three persons. Neither position does full justice to God’s self-revelation. With the Cappadocian Fathers he understands that the conception of the three persons implies their relationships to each other. Unfortunately, the Fathers erred in formulating this model in terms of the Father’s monarchy (Grenz loc. 658).
If we begin with “one being” or a single subject or mind, then “every attempt to derive the plurality of the trinitarian persons from a concept of God as one being...leads to modalism or subordination, for in all such approaches God remains a single subject” (676). Maybe. The tradition said that God is three subjects in one mind, not one subject. That might not matter today, though, since we tend to equate mind and person.
Pannenberg thinks a better model is to see the relations as self-differentiations. “The essence of person lies in the act of giving oneself to one’s counterpart and thereby gaining identity from the other...person is a correlative term” (691).
While terms such as generation and procession are important, we shouldn’t let them crowd out New Testament terms on personhood: giving over and receiving back, obedience and glorification, and filling and glorifying.
Drawing upon his rich field theory, Pannenberg suggests it is more accurate to speak of God’s spirit in terms of “field” rather than reason and will (which, of course, he has). He correctly notes that the biblical material does not speak of “spirit” as “consciousness” but as moving air. This fits in with his field theory, and from this Pannenberg sees consciousness under spirit, not the other way around.
Further, he anchors the concept of essence in the sub-category of relation. This part needs more work. It has precedent within the tradition but we need more development.
Christology
Pannenberg does incorporate the logos concept from the tradition, but he notes that the tradition failed to use it in connection with Jesus as the New Adam and Israel’s hope.
Pannenberg is famous (or notorious) for his “Christology from Below,” but several things are going on. He doesn’t hold to an adoptionist Christology where Jesus became God. His is more of method: we must begin with what our eyes have seen and hands handled.
Unlike the tradition, Pannenberg wants to anchor Jesus’s identity in his mission for Israel. This is the main strength in a Christology from below: it takes Jesus’s Jewishness quite seriously. If your Christology ignores Israel, you have a different god of the Bible.
The first casualty is election. It is de-historicized. Strangely enough, Arminians and Pelagians are just as guilty as Calvinists. I believe I am elect. Chosen before the foundation of the world, but my election can never be abstracted from Israel.
Pannenberg correctly notes with Luther that assurance is found, not on speculating on my election, but in hearing the word of forgiveness found in the gospel.
So if we reject supersessionism on one hand and two peoples of God on the other, where does that leave Israel today? Pannenberg answers with Paul: there is a remnant and that remnant is the people of God (anticipating, of course, a final ingathering of Jews).
Eschatology
His remarks on time and eternity are quite interesting. The end of time is not nothingness. Rather, God lifts “temporal history into the divine eternal presence” (2957). Time is when eternity is divided into moments. With Maximus the Confessor, Pannenberg argues that in the eschaton time will no longer be divided. Its different moments will become a unity.
Conclusion
This analysis is far heavier than Anthony Thiselton’s otherwise fine work on Pannenberg. Grenz interacts with all of the criticisms of Pannenberg and occasionally offers his own. The work is strong where Pannenberg’s own work is strong: the doctrine of God and Christology. His stuff on ecclesiology is okay but nothing to write home about. I do wish Grenz would have devoted more time to Pannenberg’s use of field theory. Other than that, a recommended title.
Wolfhart Pannenberg was the most impressive and powerful theologian since Barth, and he was superior to Barth in every way. And while he was a better communicator than Barth, not everything he said is immediately clear. And not everything he wrote came across with equal power. His doctrine of God and defense of the resurrection will serve the theology student quite well for decades. His ecclesiology, by contrast, while not necessarily wrong, lacks that same power.
Pannenberg’s most baffling claim concerns the futurity of God. What I think he means, and this is what Grenz suggests, is that the demonstration of God in its finality can only occur at the end of history, making all previous claims provisional in character. Jesus’s resurrection and announcement of the kingdom is a proleptic moment of that futurity. In short, it is an epistemological, not an ontological claim.
On Truth
In the biblical understanding truth isn’t just a static realm of changeless ideas. “Rather, it is what shows itself throughout the movement of time climaxing in the end event, which is anticipated in the present” (Grenz loc. 207).
On God
Pannenberg’s trinitarianism is probably the most exciting locus in his project. He bypasses the debates on whether we should begin with the one essence or three persons. Neither position does full justice to God’s self-revelation. With the Cappadocian Fathers he understands that the conception of the three persons implies their relationships to each other. Unfortunately, the Fathers erred in formulating this model in terms of the Father’s monarchy (Grenz loc. 658).
If we begin with “one being” or a single subject or mind, then “every attempt to derive the plurality of the trinitarian persons from a concept of God as one being...leads to modalism or subordination, for in all such approaches God remains a single subject” (676). Maybe. The tradition said that God is three subjects in one mind, not one subject. That might not matter today, though, since we tend to equate mind and person.
Pannenberg thinks a better model is to see the relations as self-differentiations. “The essence of person lies in the act of giving oneself to one’s counterpart and thereby gaining identity from the other...person is a correlative term” (691).
While terms such as generation and procession are important, we shouldn’t let them crowd out New Testament terms on personhood: giving over and receiving back, obedience and glorification, and filling and glorifying.
Drawing upon his rich field theory, Pannenberg suggests it is more accurate to speak of God’s spirit in terms of “field” rather than reason and will (which, of course, he has). He correctly notes that the biblical material does not speak of “spirit” as “consciousness” but as moving air. This fits in with his field theory, and from this Pannenberg sees consciousness under spirit, not the other way around.
Further, he anchors the concept of essence in the sub-category of relation. This part needs more work. It has precedent within the tradition but we need more development.
Christology
Pannenberg does incorporate the logos concept from the tradition, but he notes that the tradition failed to use it in connection with Jesus as the New Adam and Israel’s hope.
Pannenberg is famous (or notorious) for his “Christology from Below,” but several things are going on. He doesn’t hold to an adoptionist Christology where Jesus became God. His is more of method: we must begin with what our eyes have seen and hands handled.
Unlike the tradition, Pannenberg wants to anchor Jesus’s identity in his mission for Israel. This is the main strength in a Christology from below: it takes Jesus’s Jewishness quite seriously. If your Christology ignores Israel, you have a different god of the Bible.
The first casualty is election. It is de-historicized. Strangely enough, Arminians and Pelagians are just as guilty as Calvinists. I believe I am elect. Chosen before the foundation of the world, but my election can never be abstracted from Israel.
Pannenberg correctly notes with Luther that assurance is found, not on speculating on my election, but in hearing the word of forgiveness found in the gospel.
So if we reject supersessionism on one hand and two peoples of God on the other, where does that leave Israel today? Pannenberg answers with Paul: there is a remnant and that remnant is the people of God (anticipating, of course, a final ingathering of Jews).
Eschatology
His remarks on time and eternity are quite interesting. The end of time is not nothingness. Rather, God lifts “temporal history into the divine eternal presence” (2957). Time is when eternity is divided into moments. With Maximus the Confessor, Pannenberg argues that in the eschaton time will no longer be divided. Its different moments will become a unity.
Conclusion
This analysis is far heavier than Anthony Thiselton’s otherwise fine work on Pannenberg. Grenz interacts with all of the criticisms of Pannenberg and occasionally offers his own. The work is strong where Pannenberg’s own work is strong: the doctrine of God and Christology. His stuff on ecclesiology is okay but nothing to write home about. I do wish Grenz would have devoted more time to Pannenberg’s use of field theory. Other than that, a recommended title.
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