THE ROLE OF SCIENCE IN PANNENBERG'S THEOGICAL THINKING

Abstract. Employing categories derived from the philosopher of science Imre Lakatos, this essay analyzes the theological thought of Wolfhart Pannenberg, with the aim of showing that he is engaged in a research program that takes seriously the various sciences and their understanding of the world on the one hand and the traditions of Christian faith and theology on the other. The course of the argument demonstrates that Pannenberg's thought extends comprehensively to provide a conceptuality that centers on the phenomena of contingency and field and encompasses nearly every realm of science and the breadth of biblical and theological traditions.     

Theology, Science, and Relationality: Interdisciplinary Reciprocity in the Work of Wolfhart Pannenberg

The material anthropological proposals of Wolfhart Pannenberg are best interpreted in light of the methodological reciprocity that lies across and holds together his treatments of theology and science. In the context of a response to a recent book on Pannenberg by Jacqui Stewart, this article outlines a new interpretation of his theological engagement with the human sciences. I provide a model of the relationality that links these disciplines in Pannenberg's work and commend its general contours as a resource for the ongoing reconstruction of the interdisciplinary dialogue vis-à-vis the concerns of late modernity.     

Pannenberg's Fundamental Challenges to Theology and Science

This paper is a response to Wolfhart Pannenberg's "God as Spirit—and Natural Science" (2001). I argue that the distinctiveness and significance of Pannenberg's approach to the conversation between theology and science lies in his method of relating biblical-theological concepts specifically and directly to scientific knowledge and theories. The example at issue in this paper is his correlation of the biblical-theological term spirit to the scientific term field. This approach is both distinctive and the most difficult of challenges. However, it results in a genuinely theological interpretation of the scientific knowledge of the world. In his argument, Pannenberg asserts that his use of the term field is both similar to and different from the scientific use of the term. This assertion is provocative, but it also requires further discussion.     

"Scientific" Theology/"Theological" Science: Pannenberg and the Dialogue Between Theology and Science

Throughout his distinguished career, Wolfhart Pannenberg has sought to show that the Christian understanding of God is crucial to the pursuit of knowledge. As the essays in Beginning with the End indicate, Pannenberg has attempted to construct a bridge between theology and science via the idea of contingency and the concept of field. His interest in dialogue, however, arises out of a deeper theological foundation, which views theology as a public discipline and sees the human quest for truth as the quest for God. Although susceptible to criticisms that all objectivist approaches at-tract, this focus on "reasonable faith" provides a helpful point of departure for dialogue.     

PERSONAL PARTICIPATION: Michael Polanyi, Eric Voegelin, and the Indispensability of Faith

In this paper I focus on the central role faith plays in the thought of Polanyi and Voegelin. I begin by indicating how both find the modern conception of scientific knowing seriously wanting. What Polanyi terms “objectivism” and Voegelin calls “scientism” is the modern tendency to reduce knowledge to only that which can be scientifically demonstrated. This errant view of knowledge does not occur in a vacuum, though, and both men draw a connection between this and the political pathologies of the twentieth century. I then show the complementary ways in which these two thinkers believe recovery is possible: an epistemological solution encompassed in Polanyi's personal knowledge and an ontological reorientation that is the core of Voegelin's insistence that we must recover an awareness of human participation in transcendent reality.     

SCIENCE AND REALITY, RELIGION AND GOD: A REPLY TO HARRY PROSCH

Abstract. Michael Polanyi saw his epistemology as restoring the capacity of a scientific age to believe again in the reality of God known through religion. This central feature of Polanyi's thought, discussed in my book The Way of Discovery , is disputed by Harry Prosch, co-author with Polanyi of Meaning. Prosch's argument is that while in Polanyi's view science deals with an independent reality, religion and theology do not and are only works of our imagination. This article answers Prosch with a review of Polanyi's Christian affiliations, his conceptions of the common ground of science and religion, the levels of reality to which both science and religion provide access, and his expressed aim to liberate faith from scientific dogmatism.     

In Memoriam: Wolfhart Pannenberg (1928–2014)

Prompted by the September 4, 2014 passing of a Continental titan of Protestant systematic theology, this article summarizes the life and thought of Wolfhart Pannenberg. A brief review is offered of his conversion from atheism to the Christian faith, student studies, and faculty positions along with his corpus of writings. An in‐depth analysis is offered of Pannenberg's key theological commitments to creation, eschatology, Christology, Trinity, retroactive ontology, prolepsis, anthropology, and the relationship between time and eternity. The scale and complexity and subtlety of Pannenberg's worldview renders it vulnerable to charges of incoherence; but few can doubt the masterful achievement of the gift of this person's life—a gift from God—to the world of Christian theology.     

Living The Future: The Kingdom of God in the Theologies of Jürgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg

Abstract:  In recent theology, both Jürgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg have made the kingdom of God a central theme in their thought. However, there has been little ensuing discussion delimiting the precise theological insights entailed in their positions or relating this aspect of their work to their broader theological endeavours. Moreover, discussions surrounding the moral implications of the kingdom of God in these two thinkers have been oddly estranged from the theological articulations on which these ethical suggestions have been based. This article aims to address this deficit in the current debate by examining and exploring the nature and role of the kingdom of God in Moltmann and Pannenberg's thought. Once the material content of the kingdom has been explored theologically, both theologians will be critiqued on the manner in which they include the theme of judgement into the kingdom, and the subsequent ethical results.     

Role played self-disclosure as a function of liking and knowing

Subjects identified persons from their own lives whom they liked and knew to varying degrees. At a later session, subjects role-played a self-disclosing conversation with each identified person. Verbal behavior was recorded and analyzed with respect to the personalness of disclosure. Analysis of variance results for both self-report and observational measures show significant effects for liking and knowing on personal, but not impersonal, self-disclosure. The pattern of results over all dependent measures indicates that liking has a more specific effect on personal disclosure than does knowing, but that liking and knowing do not differ in relative control over impersonal disclosure. A correlational analysis involving subjects' perceptions of the experimental situation and the dependent disclosure measures supported this interpretation.     

Ecclesiology and Ethics

The author elaborates on the relation between tradition and the concept of 'invention' within doctrinal theory. Based on examinations of how this is reflected upon in selected doctrinal theories (Alister E. McGrath, Wolfhart Pannenberg and Oswald Bayer), the author discusses 'invention' in relation to adjacent theological issues. Diverging issues seem to be whether invention should be reserved for the object of theology (Bayer), or whether invention should be the task of systematic theology, especially in relation to the constant generation of new experiences (McGrath and Pannenberg). The author also asserts that the doctrinal theory of Bayer is inventive, even though not intended to be so. Thus, the question is how to work inventively within systematic theology, not whether to do so.     

CONTINGENCY IN PHYSICS AND COSMOLOGY: A CRITIQUE OF THE THEOLOGY OF WOLFHART PANNENBERG

Abstract. The concept of contingency serves to bridge the doctrine of creation and natural science in Wolfhart Pannenberg's theology. My paper first analyzes the relation of creatio ex nihilo and creatio continua. Next I suggest three categories of contingency: global, local, and nomological. Under each category I assess Pannenberg's use of physics, cosmology, and philosophy of science. Although I agree with Pannenberg's emphasis on continuous creation and on the role of science in renewing the doctrine of creation, I argue for a shift in the discussion from Pannenberg's topics to others, such as the anthropic principle, quantum physics, and thermodynamics.     

Ambiguity,the Trinity,and Naturalism: From the Methodology of Pannenberg to the Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty

Abstract

Through an interpretation of Wolfhart Pannenberg's trinitarian methodology, this article presents the argument that theology and naturalism are ambiguously intertwined and that we once again have to determine how to methodologically address the relationship between theology and science. This study contends that Pannenberg's theology is important for our conception of the dialog between theology and science. However, I wish to offer a fundamentally new interpretation of Pannenberg which locates the ambiguous character of his methodology primarily in the substantive issue with which it deals. This redirects the dialogue between theology and science through Pannenberg's hermeneutic of history towards the contemporary phenomenology of the body and ultimately to the suggestion of a trinitarian-phenomenological approach beyond the methodology of Pannenberg.     

Theology: Reduction or Autonomy?

Issues of the nature and task of theology remain important to the science-theology dialogue. This paper lays out a framework for understanding the nature of theology in relation to the other sciences. In particular, I argue that the primary question remains one of autonomy and reduction. If theology is a genuine academic discipline, then it should be an autonomous field with its own subject matter and norms. Wolfhart Pannenberg argues that theology is the science of God, but I suggest that theology be more broadly understood as the science of meaning. If we recognize this, the modes of interaction between theology and the other sciences becomes clearer.     

POLANYI ON TELEOLOGY: ARESPONSETO JOHN APCZYNSKI AND RICHARD GELWICK

Abstract. Michael Polanyi criticized the neo‐Darwinian synthesis on two grounds: that accidental hereditary changes bringing adaptive advantages cannot account for the rise of discontinuous new species, and that a Ideological ordering principle is needed to explain evolutionary advance. I commend the previous articles by John Apczynski and Richard Gelwick and also argue, more strongly than they, that Polanyi's critique of evolutionary theory is flawed. It relies on an inappropriate notion of progress and untenable analogies from the human process of scientific discovery and the fact that in physical systems minimal potential energy is most stable. Yet within a life of commitment to transcendent values humans can directly experience purpose and meaning, and in developing this notion Polanyi makes his greatest contribution to teleology.     

“To Teach Them to See”: Teaching Christian Theology in Material Things

Teachers of theology or religious studies readily seek to open their students to the interpretation of theological texts. Do they share a similar readiness to open students to the interpretation of religious symbols and artifacts, the material cultures of religious faiths? Although theological studies have preferred the abstract concept over the material object, any proper understanding of religious faith must admit some form of direct encounter with the constellation of material symbols surrounding that faith. Teaching students to “read” the material symbols of faith does not do away with the need to help them read and interpret the written word, but supplements and deepens humane, scholarly reflection on religious faith. Helping students to see, to interpret what they see, and to re‐view their understanding of the religious symbol or artifact amounts to teaching a visual theology; a helpful and necessary challenge for the teacher of theology or religious studies.     

Theological Education in Epistemological Perspective: The Significance of Michael Polanyhi's “Personal Knowledge” for a Theological Orientation of Theological Education

Of what significance to theological education is critical reflection? Representing an influential perspective, Charles Wood seems to ascribe to critical reflection the highest priority by defining theology as “critical reflection upon the validity of the Christian witness.” This article argues that such a perspective devalues participatory modes of knowing. In contrast, the scientific epistemology of Michael Polanyi better illumines the pedagogical nature and theological orientation of theological education. Specifically, his notion of “indwelling” serves as a point of integration by which participative knowing is extended and intensified by the clarificatory power of critical reflection.     

Time/History,Self-disclosure and Anticipation: Pannenberg,Heidegger and the Question of Metaphysics

This essay examines Wolfhart Pannenberg’s defense of metaphysics’ foundational importance for philosophy and theology. Among all the modern philosophers whose claims Pannenberg challenges, Martin Heidegger’s discourse against Western metaphysics receives the major portion of criticism. The first thing one concludes from this criticism is an affirmation of a wide intellectual gap that separates Pannenberg’s thought from Heidegger’s, as if each stands at the very opposite corner of the other’s school of thought. The questions this essay tackles are: is this seemingly irreconcilable difference between Pannenberg and Heidegger fully justifiable? What if there is a reading of Panneberg’s and Heidegger’s view of metaphysics that can reveal deeper similarities between the two thinkers than the first reading of Pannenberg’s criticism of Heidegger allows us to see? It then answers these questions by showing that both thinkers actually share a common emphasis on the concepts of ‘time/history’, ‘self-disclosure’ and ‘anticipation’, and their reliance on these notions reveals that Heidegger’s and Pannenberg’s approaches to the phenomenon of understanding and to metaphysical ontology are not fully contradictory but rather hold noticeable hermeneutical similarities.     

A Critique of Wolfhart Pannenberg's Scientific Theology

Abstract

In Theology and the Philosophy of Science, Wolfhart Pannenberg argues that theology is on a par with the natural sciences, insofar as theological statements are hypotheses subject to confirmation or disconfirmation by experience. He defends his thesis by claiming that theology makes truth-claims about reality; and, second, that these are verifiable in the same sense that scientific statements are. I will argue that this thesis is wrong; and that the first claim could be right in a sense that has yet to be made clear; the second is not defensible even if fleshed out by some conceivable scientific scenario.     

A Search for the Body: Is there Space for Christ's Body in Pannenberg's Eschatology?

Pannenberg's thought makes a constant appeal to ‘anticipation’, and this concept depends on a metaphysical proposal, temporalized essentialism, which includes an account of eternity as simultaneity of all history in God. This view of eternity has been both applauded and criticized. This article considers Pannenberg's account of the body of the exalted Christ who is in eternity. Pannenberg affirms the resurrection of Jesus, but has no account of the nature of Jesus’ resurrected body. He emphasizes the church as the body of the exalted Christ, but describes this body as lacking particularity. His account of the Eucharist does not have any place for Christ's corporeal presence or for participation in Christ's exalted body. His account of the return of Christ is oriented to the revelation of the glorified unity of all reality in Christ. The reason that Pannenberg has no account of the body of Christ is due to his conception of eternity, a conception which differs markedly from that of Paul. The Pauline heavenly realm is part of the creation, and thus has a spatio‐temporal relationship to the earthly realm as well as having a spatio‐temporal dimension in itself. Pannenberg's conception of eternity is that it is outside of the created realm and has no spatial dimension. Douglas Farrow argues that a theology that lacks an account of the exalted body of Christ fails to have a proper account of the redemption of humanity and creation, and it seems Pannenberg's view is open to this criticism.