Customer Reviews

Systematic Theology (Volume 1)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I noticed that no one seemed to supply the table of contents for Vol. 1, and so I thought it would be helpful to provide that here. As an interesting side note, I've heard from some friends that Pannenberg is a wonderful preacher. I'd be curious to hear how he brings works like this to those entrusted to his care.
Not light reading, can be a bit dry, but worth it.
CONTENTS:
Abbreviations
Foreword
Chapter 1 The Truth of Christian Doctrine as the Theme of Systematic Theology
~Theology
~The Truth of Dogma
~Dogmatics as Systematic Theology
~The Development and Problem of So-called Prolegomena to Dogmatics
~The Truth of Christian Doctrine as the Theme of Systematic Theology

Chapter 2 The Concept of God and the Question of Its Truth.
~The Word "God"
~Natural Knowledge of God and Natural Theology
~The Proofs of God and Philosophical Criticism of Natural Theology
~Theological Criticism of Natural Theology
~The "Natural" Knowledge of God

Chapter 3 The Reality of God and the Gods in the Experience of the Religions
~The Concept of Religion and Its Function in Theology
a. Religion and the Knowledge of God
b. The Concept of Religion, the Plurality of Relgions, and the "Absoluteness" of Christianity
~The Anthropological and Theological Nature of Religion
~The Question of the Truth of Religion and the History of Religion
~The Religious Relation

Chapter 4 The Revelation of God
~The Theological Function of the COncept of Revelation
~The Multiplicity of Biblical Ideas of Revelation
~The Function of the Concept of Revelation in the History of Theology
~Revelation as History and as Word of God

Chapter 5 The Trinitarian God
~The God of Jesus and the Beginnings of the Doctrine of the Trinity
~The Place of the Doctrine of the Trinity in the Dogmatic Structure and the Problem of Finding a Basis for Trinitarian Statements
~Distinction and Unity of the Divine Persons
a. The Revelation of God in Jesus Christ as the Starting Point, and the Traditional Terminology of the Doctrine of the Trinity
b. The Reciprocal Self-Distinction of Father, Son, and Spirit as the Concrete Form of Trinitarian Relations
c. Three Persons but only One God

Chapter 6 The Unity and Attributes of the Divine Essence
~The Majesty of God and the Task of Rational Discussion of Talk about God
~The Distinction between God's Essence and Existence
~God's Essence and Attributes and the Link between Them in Action
~God's Spirituality, Knowledge, and Will
~The Concept of Divine Actiona dnt eh Sturcture of the Doctrine of the Divine Attributes
~The Infinity of God: His Holiness, Eternity, Omnipotence, and Omnipresence
a. The Infinity and Holiness of God
b. The Eternity of God
c. The Omnipresence and Omnipotence of God
~The Love of God
a. Love and Trinity
b. Attributes of the Divine Love
c. The Unity of God
Indexes
~~~~~Subjects
~~~~~Names
~~~~~Scripture References
And there is the Table of Contents, for those strange folks, like me, who enjoy seeing these things before we dive in.

The monolithic learning displayed by Wolfhart Pannenberg is incredibly focused and lucid in this, the first volume of his systematic theology. Dealing heavily with prolegomenal issues (though not necessarily in the traditional sense) Pannenberg delves into the historical understandings of revelation, religion, God, The Trinity, and the attributes of God. Pannenberg is a highly original thinker who has not been conversed with in American theology as heavily as his genius may warrant, but who has nonetheless irrevocably changed the penumbra in which we perform the task of systematic, historical, and philosophical theology.

For anyone familiar with Pannenberg's other works, when he commits to explaning something, he is exhastively thorough (steeped especially in German and Lutheran thought, though the spectrum of his program is highly ecumenical.) The only complaint I may really levy against Pannenberg is the seeming absence of dialogue with Continental and Anglo-American postmoderns (e.g the Deconstructionism of Derrida, or the Post-Metaphysical thought of Marion, or others such as Wittgenstein, Foucoult, Ricouer, Fish, etc...) Nor does there seem to be any interaction with the so called "Yale," school--as tenuous as that marker may be-- with either Frei or Lindbeck, who, it would seem, would indeed present challenges to Pannenbergs eminantly historical/correspondance understanding of the biblical representation of and eschatologically oriented historical process, as opposed to Lindbeck's understanding of doctrine being a linguistic system, or Frei's now famous theory that the Bible is "history like," and should be read on the terms of the text itself rather than as historical/reconstructivist document.

Pannenberg however, does adopt and modify the program set up by Gadamer's "meta-critical" approach to hermeneutics, seeing all of human knowledge as finite and situated in the historical process, so that true understanding will only come with the Eschaton's consummation. This essential relationship between understanding part/whole, and the interplay (what some would call a modified version of the hermeneutical circle used for the process of history) between tradition interpreting current experience, which in turn sheds new light on past events, culminates in what Pannenberg sees a proleptic disclosure of the eschaton in Christ. So that Christ, as the future of the world, is already a power in the world shaping the future that He is. Rather that understanding the Word of God (as is traditional) as God's self-revelation (in the sense that most would take from Barth, of a God who is directly self-revealing or unfolding) the primary content of the Word is never God Himself, but always directly about us and our world, and then secondarily or indirectly about God. In Pannenberg's opinion this allows for the multiplicity of forms that revelation and the Word of God takes, but also for the integration of new experience, which Pannenberg adopts from a synthesis (and evolution) from both Hegel's understanding of History as a whole, and schliermacher's understanding that the contents of any finite experience are always "carved out of the infinite," so that meta-critically, religions see the implicity context of any given moment as it is in relation to the greater whole, the Universum or the Infinite. Here also, Pannenberg gives greater coherence to Descarte's ontologism of retroactive significance of our at first "nonthematic perception of the infinite, from which we understand all finite things through attributing limitation." Here, we do not fully initially perceive God as God, but as a nonthematic infinite that comprehends, unifies, and inter-relates the nexus of experience. Only later do we attribute the significance of God to this Universum, and thereby recognize that God was always present even if we did not know Him as such (e.g. when the Lord gives the divine name in exodus 3, the patriarch to whom he refers himself for his identity to moses knew God as El'Shaddai but not as YHWH) Hence the signifigance of this thought means that the Christian God, as the GOd of the heavens, is either the basic or foundational (perhaps maybe even more rightly transcendental) or a delusion. Here to we see hints of Pannenberg's deep involvment in Field Physics in his second volume, for Pannenberg beleives we cannot rightly understanding anything without reference to God.

In the last sections of the book, Pannenberg deals with the Trinity. He criticizes rightly the traditional Latin models, of attempting to derive the Trinity from God's unity as Spirit (e.g the tradition developed from Augustine's mens, notitia, and amore, as in Peter Lombard, even up to Barth who see's God as Revealer, Revealed, and Revelation) because this seems to collapse into Sabellianism as it assumes a single underlying subject. Nor does Richard of St. Victors adoption of Augustine's understand of a God who Loves Himself fully, where God-as-His-own-object exists aside God as the God who loves Himself, and where also the Love between them is given hypostatic and ontological personhood, because this again assumes the beginning (even if only logically rather than temporally) of a single subject, and the other two being secondary or suboordinate, thus falling into what has been traditionally called "suboordinationism."

Rather, as is well known, Pannenberg has a "ground up" approach that starts with Jesus' relation to the Father, where He submits to the Father and distinguishes Himself, allowing the Father to be God in Distinction to HImself. Just so (and of course I am butchering Pannenbergs brilliant scholarship here, so read the book if you aren't satisfied with my feeble attempt) God the Father is such everywhere only in relation to Jesus, so, borrowing from Athanasius, the Father would not be Father without the SOn. COnversly, of course, the SOn is not SOn without the Father as Father, so precisley in suboordinating himself (economically, of course) he allows the Father to be Fatherly, and so is Himself Son in this instance (which opens up quite a lot of possibilites for explaining how the kenosis operated.) When Christ was crucified, his identification of the sOn was jeopardized in this supposed defeat, and so, since the Father is God only in relation to this SOn, the Father's identity as king on earth was questioned, and so both are referred to the operations of the SPirit, who is precisely the power and person of their "future", who raises Christ and identifies him truly as Son, and so the Father truly as Father. Again, I am leaving out a lot of quality insight...

The final part of this book, I will leave you with, is the attributes of God intepreted through the interactions of the community of the Triune Godhead. These operations are explained through Pannenbergs adoption of the Hegelian "true infinite." In traditional terms the infinite was seen as that which was opposed to the finite (in neo-platonic via negationis and apophatic theology etc...) but in this way the infinite is defined against or seperated from the finite, and so is itself having boundaries and just so not finite. The true infinite transcends its own antithesis to the finite, comprehending the finite in its place and so being truly infinite. Thus, for example, the incarnation is an actualization of the infinity of God, where He is not merely "above" us, but greets us in our own condition (this is an important reaction to traditional theology which basis its attributes on causality rather than action. Just so, Pannenberg reacts to hyper-apophaticism saying that pure transcendence in terms of say, Paul Tillich's "Being itself," cannot exist, because transcendence itself expresses a relation, so a being that we know is totally unknown or beyong predication is a contradition...)

All in all, this is an enormous book that I recommend for anyone seeking to go beyond traditional expositions on theology.

Wolfhart Pannenberg has a comprehensive style where he gives the reader a synopsis of the entire history of theological thought - all crammed into the first volume. Pannenberg takes us through a series of viewpoints and alternative viewpoints, giving us a chronological sequence of a multitude of varying theologies. After demonstrating to the reader how alternative theologies have evolved over time, he gives us new, innovative ideas based on a fusion of the best aspects of past ideas. He gives us a complete history of theology regarding such subjects as the Trinity, the split between evangelical, natural, and systematic theology, and the establishment of consciousness through the Trinity. He then settles on his own original ideas based on an exhaustive study of all of the alternative theories throughout history. The end result is a fantastic new vision of the preservation of consciousness through God, the Son, and the Spirit.

Pannenberg starts this volume with a detailed exploration of the split between Barthian evangelical theology and natural theology. This split is one of the most important questions facing theologians today. He makes a scathing critique of Barth's orthodox evangelical theology in favor of a more relaxed natural theology that allows for a universal salvation. He discusses various forms of natural saving dispositions and natural salvation energy. This energy acts before or independently of Christ, using the Spirit to pave the way for Christ. In this sense the Spirit acts to glorify Christ in both past, present and future.

Pannenberg's idea of the natural knowledge of God is based on the idea of "the finite being carved out of the infinite" (p.139). "Dissatisfaction with the finite can take the form of the question of God only on the condition of a knowledge of God that is gained elsewhere" (p.116). In other words, as long as we have basic knowledge of the existence of God, we will have a sense of dissatisfaction with the finite. This causes us to look at the finite more carefully, leading to basic self-conscious being. This concept is very reminiscent of Jurgen Moltmann's ideas regarding God's natural saving dispositions as described in the Crucified God. As long as we have some basic concept of the eternal, we will have a concept of the temporal in contradistinction. "The truth is that the finite is not self-grounded but is carved out of the infinite and the totality" (p.140).

Pannenberg describes this as natural knowledge of God because this type of awareness of finitude can penetrate the secular realm, even if people are not aware of it. "Religious awareness stands in opposition to secular awareness only because the latter is not aware of the fact that finite objects are conditioned by their being carved out of the infinite and defined by it... the holy in religious awareness can also be viewed as constitutive for our secular reality" (140). The important thing to remember here is that a very basic idea of the eternal conditions our awareness of the temporal, and we will have consciousness as long as this basic knowledge of God is in place. But this awareness of finitude is "not self-grounded" but "carved out of the infinite", proving that God is in fact necessary for natural conscious awakening. This is roughly the basis of Pannenberg's natural theology - a basic and primordial consciousness of our selves as finite in contrast to a general idea of an eternal God.

Perhaps even more important, however, is Pannenberg's discussion of the Trinity. This is based on "the glorifying of the Son by the Spirit" (p.315). Basically, the Spirit orchestrates world-historic events on a grand scale using subconscious psychic undercurrents (possibly related to what depth-psychologists call the collective unconscious). These events ultimately force us to turn to Christ, glorifying Christ and God by showing us the internal logic and synchronicity within world events. This is how "the Spirit glorifies not himself but the Son, and in him the Father" (315). The Son glorifies the Father by proving the Father's love through forgiveness of sins and promise in the afterlife. These prove to be the critical missing pieces in glorifying God. And the Spirit orchestrates the life-changing events which force us to turn back to Christ. This is how we go from Spirit to Christ to Father. Before Christ there was no world harmony, so the glorification of the Father could not be complete without the Son. But the pre-Christian events were orchestrated by the Spirit to create a society that could recieve the Son. This is how the Spirit > Son> Father sequence works.

Look, this is a very difficult book and any discussion of the Trinity provides infinite food for thought. We cannot achieve a full understanding of the Trinity in a short review. All I can say is if you are reading this and you want to get caught up with the latest trends in theology you have to attempt this book. Good luck.