Wolfhart Pannenberg is a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 theologian

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

. His emphasis on history as revelation

Revelation

In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing, through active or passive communication with a supernatural or a divine entity...

, centred on the Resurrection of Christ, has proved important in stimulating debate in both Protestant and Catholic

Catholic

The word catholic comes from the Greek phrase , meaning "on the whole," "according to the whole" or "in general", and is a combination of the Greek words meaning "about" and meaning "whole"...

 theology, as well as with non-Christian thinkers.

Life and views

Pannenberg was baptized as an infant into the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church, but otherwise had virtually no contact with the church in his early years. At about the age of sixteen, however, he had an intensely religious experience he later called his "light experience." Seeking to understand this experience, he began to search through the works of great philosophers and religious thinkers. A high school literature teacher who had been a part of the Confessing Church

Confessing Church

The Confessing Church was a Protestant schismatic church in Nazi Germany that arose in opposition to government-sponsored efforts to nazify the German Protestant church.-Demographics:...

 during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 encouraged him to take a hard look at Christianity, which resulted in Pannenberg's "intellectual conversion," in which he concluded that Christianity was the best available religious option. This propelled him into his vocation as a theologian.

Pannenberg's epistemology, explained clearly in his shorter essays, is crucial to his theological project. It is heavily influenced by that of one mentor, Edmund Schlink

Edmund Schlink

Edmund Schlink was a leading German Lutheran theologian in the modern ecumenical movement, especially in the World Council of Churches. Because his career began at the time of Hitler's rise to power in Germany, Schlink’s life, theology, and witness to Christ were shaped by what he called, "Grace...

, who proposed a distinction between analogical truth, i.e. a descriptive truth or model, and doxological

Doxology

A doxology is a short hymn of praises to God in various Christian worship services, often added to the end of canticles, psalms, and hymns...

 truth, or truth as immanent in worship. In this way of thinking, theology tries to express doxological truth. As such it is a response to God's self-revelation. Schlink was also instrumental in shaping Pannenberg's approach to theology as an ecumenical enterprise - an emphasis which has remained constant throughout his career.

Pannenberg's understanding of revelation

Revelation

In religion and theology, revelation is the revealing or disclosing, through active or passive communication with a supernatural or a divine entity...

 is strongly conditioned by his reading of Karl Barth

Karl Barth

Karl Barth was a Swiss Reformed theologian whom critics hold to be among the most important Christian thinkers of the 20th century; Pope Pius XII described him as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas...

 and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. His historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole revolutionized European philosophy and was an important precursor to Continental philosophy and Marxism.Hegel developed a comprehensive...

, as well as by a sympathetic reading of Christian and Jewish apocalyptic literature. The Hegelian concept of history as an unfolding process in which Spirit and freedom are revealed combines with a Barthian notion of revelation occurring "vertically from above". While Pannenberg adopts a Hegelian understanding of History itself as God's self-revelation, he strongly asserts the Resurrection of Christ as a proleptic

Prolepsis

Prolepsis may refer to:* Flashforward, in storytelling, an interjected scene that takes the narrative forward* Prolepsis , 1975 work by Arrogance...

 revelation of what history is unfolding. Despite its obvious Barthian reference, this approach met with a mainly hostile response from both neo-Orthodox and liberal, Bultmannian

Rudolf Bultmann

Rudolf Karl Bultmann was a German theologian of Lutheran background, who was for three decades professor of New Testament studies at the University of Marburg...

 theologians in the 1960s, a response which Pannenberg claims surprised him and his associates. A more nuanced, mainly implied, critique came from Jürgen Moltmann

Jürgen Moltmann

Jürgen Moltmann is a German Reformed theologian. The 2000 recipient of the Louisville Grawemeyer Award in Religion.-Moltmann's Youth:...

, whose philosophical roots lay in the Left Hegelians, Karl Marx

Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...

 and Ernst Bloch

Ernst Bloch

Ernst Bloch was a German Marxist philosopher.Bloch was influenced by both Hegel and Marx and, as he always confessed, by novelist Karl May. He was also interested in music and art . He established friendships with Georg Lukács, Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill and Theodor W. Adorno...

, and who proposed and elaborated a Theology of Hope, rather than of prolepsis, as a distinctively Christian response to History.

Pannenberg is perhaps best known for Jesus: God and Man in which he constructs a Christology

Christology

Christology is the field of study within Christian theology which is primarily concerned with the nature and person of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament. Primary considerations include the relationship of Jesus' nature and person with the nature...

 "from below," deriving his dogmatic claims from a critical examination of the life and particularly the Resurrection

Resurrection

Resurrection refers to the literal coming back to life of the biologically dead. It is used both with respect to particular individuals or the belief in a General Resurrection of the dead at the end of the world. The General Resurrection is featured prominently in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim...

 of Jesus of Nazareth. This is his programmatic statement of the notion of "History as Revelation". He rejects traditional Chalcedonian

Council of Chalcedon

The Council of Chalcedon was a church council held from 8 October to 1 November, 451 AD, at Chalcedon , on the Asian side of the Bosporus. The council marked a significant turning point in the Christological debates that led to the separation of the church of the Eastern Roman Empire in the 5th...

 "two-natures" Christology, preferring to view the person of Christ dynamically in light of the resurrection. This focus on the resurrection as the key to Christ's identity has led Pannenberg to defend its historicity, stressing the experience of the risen Christ in the history of the early Church rather than the empty tomb.

Central to Pannenberg's theological career has been his defence of theology as a rigorous academic discipline, one capable of critical interaction with philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

, history, and most of all, the natural science

Natural science

The natural sciences are branches of science that seek to elucidate the rules that govern the natural world by using empirical and scientific methods...

s. Pannenberg has also defended the theology of American mathematical physicist

Mathematical physics

Mathematical physics refers to development of mathematical methods for application to problems in physics. The Journal of Mathematical Physics defines this area as: "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the development of mathematical methods suitable for such applications and...

 Frank J. Tipler

Frank J. Tipler

Frank Jennings Tipler is a mathematical physicist and cosmologist, holding a joint appointment in the Departments of Mathematics and Physics at Tulane University. Tipler has authored books and papers on the Omega Point, which he claims is a mechanism for the resurrection of the dead. It has been...

's Omega Point Theory (see Tipler 1989; 1994; 2007).

Career

Pannenberg has been a professor on the faculties of several universities consistently since 1958. Between the years of 1958 and 1961 he was the Professor of Systematic Theology at the Kichlichen Hochschule Wuppertal. Between 1961 and 1968 he was a professor in Mainz. He has had several visiting professorships at the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 (1963), Harvard (1966), and at the Claremont School of Theology

Claremont School of Theology

Claremont School of Theology is a graduate school located in Claremont, California, offering Master of Art, Masters of Divinity, Doctorate of Ministry and Ph.D...

 (1967), and since 1968 has been Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Munich.

Throughout his career Pannenberg has remained a prolific writer. As of December 2008, his "publication page" on the University of Munich's website lists 645 academic publications

Academic publishing

Academic publishing describes the subfield of publishing which distributes academic research and scholarship. Most academic work is published in journal article, book or thesis form. The part of academic written output that is not formally published but merely printed up or posted is often called...

 to his name.

Books by Pannenberg in English

• 1968. Revelation As History (edited volume). New York: The Macmillan Company.
• 1968. Jesus: God and Man. Philadelphia: Westminster Press.
• 1969. Basic Questions in Theology. Westminster Press
• 1969. Theology and the Kingdom of God. Westminster Press.
• 1970. What Is Man? Philadelphia: Fortress Press.
• 1972. The Apostles' Creed in Light of Today's Questions. Westminster Press.
• 1976. Theology and the Philosophy of Science. Westminster Press.
• 1977. Faith and Reality. Westminster Press.
• 1985. Anthropology in Theological Perspective. T&T Clark
• 1988–1994. Systematic Theology. T & T Clark

Online writings

• "God of the Philosophers," First Things, June/July 2007.
• "Letter from Germany," First Things, March 2003.
• "Facing Up: Science and Its Cultural Adversaries," First Things, August/September 2002.
• "Review of Robert W. Jenson's Systematic Theology: Volumes I & II," First Things, May 2000.
• "When Everything is Permitted," First Things, February 1998.
• "The Pope in Germany," First Things, December 1996.
• "How to Think About Secularism," First Things, June/July 1996.
• "Christianity and the West: Ambiguous Past, Uncertain Future," First Things, December 1994.
• "The Present and Future Church," First Things, November 1991.
• "God's Presence in History," Christian Century (March 11, 1981): 260-63.

Secondary Literature

• Bradshaw, Timothy, 1988. Trinity and ontology: a comparative study of the theologies of Karl Barth
  Karl Barth
  Karl Barth was a Swiss Reformed theologian whom critics hold to be among the most important Christian thinkers of the 20th century; Pope Pius XII described him as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas...
  
   and Wolfhart Pannenberg. Edinburgh: Rutherford House Books.
• Case, Jonathan P., 2004, "The Death of Jesus and the Truth of the Triune God in Wolfhart Pannenberg and Eberhard Jüngel," Journal for Christian Theological Research 9: 1-13.
• Fukai, Tomoaki, 1996. Paradox und Prolepsis: Geschichtstheologie bei Reinhold Niebuhr und Wolfhart Pannenberg. Marburg
• Grenz, S. J.
  Stanley Grenz
  Stanley James Grenz was an American Christian theologian and ethicist in the Baptist tradition.-Early years:...
  
  , 1990. Reason for Hope: The Systematic Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg. New York: Oxford.
• --------, "Pannenberg on Marxism: Insights and Generalizations," The Christian Century (September 30, 1987): 824-26.
• --------, "Wolfhart Pannenberg's Quest for Ultimate Truth," The Christian Century (September 14–21, 1988): 795-98.
• Lischer, Richard, "An Old/New Theology of History," The Christian Century (March 13, 1974): 288-90.
• Don H. Olive, 1973. Wolfhart Pannenberg-Makers of the Modern Mind. Word Incorporated, Waco, Texas. 　
• Page, James S., 2003, "Critical Realism and the Theological Science of Wolfhart Pannenberg: Exploring the Commonalities," Bridges: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, Theology, History and Science 10(1/2): 71-84.
• Shults, F. LeRon, 1999. The Postfoundationalist Task of Theology: Wolfhart Pannenberg and the New Theological Rationality. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
• Tipler, F. J., 1989, "The Omega Point as Eschaton: Answers to Pannenberg's Questions for Scientists," Zygon 24: 217-53. Followed by Pannenberg's comments, 255-71.
• --------, 1994. The Physics of Immortality: Modern Cosmology, God and the Resurrection of the Dead. New York: Doubleday.
• --------, 2007. The Physics of Christianity. New York: Doubleday.
• Tupper, E. F., 1973. The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg. Philadelphia: Westminster press.

External links

• Articles in First Things
• Articles related to and by Pannenberg. - Links not functional at this point of time!
• Richard John Neuhaus
  Richard John Neuhaus
  Richard John Neuhaus was a prominent Christian cleric and writer. Born in Canada, Neuhaus moved to the United States where he became a naturalized United States citizen...
  
  , 1982, "Pannenberg Jousts with the World Council of Churches." Christian Century.