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Metaphysics and the Idea of God

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Wolfhart Pannenberg is well known for his complex thinking and rigorous systematization of Christian theology. A tireless defender of the pragmatic truth that Christianity has to explain world experience and meaning, Pannenberg also plunges boldly into the complex theoretical aspects of theology, philosophy, psychology, and hermeneutics, in order to elucidate his understanding that Christianity, if true, claims to know the one God, and so the one determining "fact" of all things. Hence Christianity is either a universal and foundational system that explains the essence of the world "sub ratione dei" (in relation to God, a phrase Pannenberg uses from Thomas Acquinas) or it is a delusion.

This book in particular was written on the demand of several of Pannenberg's colleagues in Germany (specially Dieter Heinrich and Larenz Puntel at Munich) to either lay down his metaphysical guantlet and explain his system, or "to cease claiming metaphysical justification" (from the preface). Hence this book can be seen as perhaps a mini-summa of Pannenberg's metaphysical outlook, though this is not an exhaustive treatment, which Pannenberg rightly reserves for being "sublated" or "taken up into" (German: aufhebung) a systematic treatment of Christian doctrine in his III vol. Systematic Theology.

Composed of eight essays and two sections titled the "Idea of God" and "Metaphysics and Theology," Pannenberg gives an absolutely stunning and condensed interaction with various philosophers and theologians throughout the ages, including Descartes, Kant, Dilthey, Heidegger,Hegel, Whitehead, William James, Hume, Feuerbach, Augustine, Aquinas, Plotinus, Aristotle, and the list goes on and on...

Going over each essay would be too burdensome for a small review, so in order to give a peak into what Pannenberg is thinking I will draw small parts of the essays into a brief summary. First, Pannenberg opens his first essay as a general critique of the so called "end of metaphysics" by thinkers like the Logical Postivists, and in a different way, Dilthey and Heidegger, and justifies the idea of metaphysics itself within the Christian tradition. This is a basic theme that runs throughout the book. Essentially what Pannenberg is attempting to outline is that metaphysically speaking, any perception of finite parts, or the finite parts themselves (which Pannenberg terms "noetic" and "ontic" conceptions of the limit respectively) can only be understood in relationship to other parts. So to speak parts are parts only in their relationship to other parts. Every time we draw a border, says Pannenberg, we have thought, however vaguely, of something that lays beyond that border. This leads to the dialectical concept of "whole," because parts are parts, almost tautologically, in relation to a whole of the parts.

Every finite thought, then, borrowing from Descartes formulation, presupposes the infinite "unifying unity" that lay behind the whole. This is a jump in my explanation, but this is of course not in the book itself, so read on if you are intrigued (or outraged?). This Pannenberg calls a "nonthematic perception" or intuition of the infinite contained in every finite content of consciousnes. So to speak, every finite content, both in our understanding of it (noetic) and in itself (ontic) has (to borrow Gadamer's expression) an expressed and unexpressed association to the rest of the totality of reality. What this does then, is to point to the future as the source of completion or totality, because only when (if) the future is completed (which Pannenberg later draws affinities to the Christian understanding of the eschaton) will objects be given to themselves their totality, and hence their essence. This breeds a specific problem, however: if the preceding is true, then can it be really so that everything is not "what it is" yet? Pannenberg answers the affirmative while circumventing relativism or skepticism. He says that everything that is, exists in a mode of anticipation of its potential completion, and as such, everything's essence exists in relationship to a potential future completion, the future being the source of the wholeness of finite being. Pannenberg points to Jesus as a particular elucidation of this structure: Jesus Resurrection points to a general future resurrection from the dead, but in essence "the eschatological resurrection is viewed as already having broken into history as an anticipation of its final state. The final reality of the eschaton is present proleptically in Jesus as anticipation of its final consummation." Pannenberg ends chapter 5 with a particularly mind-bending statement:

"the essence of events and forms within the natural world changes over the course of time; that is, what they are changes...only at the end of their movement through time, or at the end of more complex series of events, could anyone actually decide what makes up their distinctive character, their essence. At that time, one would have to maintain however that this [final state] had been the essence of the thing in question all along...the decision concerning the being that stands at the end of the process has retroactive power...if motion is understood as goal directed becoming, then the goal at which it aims, which will be 'completely' reached at its end, must somehow be already present and efficacious during the motion...if one allows this description (strange as it may seem) to sink it a bit, holding back the overused metaphor of seedlike predisposition and developement, it becomes clear that the presence of the entelecheia in the process of becoming has an anticipatory structure: it implies an anticipatory realization of the eidos before actual realization."

Of coure, the full effect, and indeed the full clarity of these statements go beyond my ability in a review. Nonetheless Pannenberg goes on to start tying the Christian concept as an exemplification of this principle. THis is not, as some have criticized, merely a repristination of an innapropriate "foundationalism" on Pannenbergs part (for an explanation read F. Leron Shult's "The Postfoundationalist Task of Theology" for an exhaustive treatment.)

Hopefully this review has sparked some interest. Don't let the inadequacy or (relative) brevity of my explanation dissuade you, for this is a truly magnificent book, regardless of whether you agree with it or not. I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a solid undertstanding of philosophical theology.