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Wolfhart Pannenberg's Doctrine of the Trinity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

R. Olson
R. Olson
Affiliation:
Bethel CollegeSt Paul, MinnesotaUSA
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Extract

In the past some of Wolfhart Pannenberg's interpreters have suggested that a major weakness of his revision of the doctrine of God is a neglect of the doctrine of the Trinity. In 1975 Herbert Burhenn criticised Pannenberg for exercising considerable reservation with regard to the three-in-oneness of God and for reducing the trinitarian distinctions of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to temporal distinctions. He also stated that ‘The Trinity cannot function for Pannenberg, as it does for Barth, as a structural principle of theology.’ About a decade later Elizabeth Johnson very cogently noted the need for a well-developed concept of the Trinity in Pannenberg's theology:

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , May 1990 , pp. 175 - 206
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1990

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References

1 Burhenn, Herbert, ‘Pannenberg's Doctrine of God’. Scottish Journal of Theology 28 (1975) pp. 536–537.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Johnson, Elizabeth, ‘Resurrection and Reality in the Thought of Wolfhart Pannenberg’, Heythrop journal 24 (1983), p. 17.Google Scholar

3 Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Grundfragen systanatischer Theologie, Band 2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoek und Ruprecht, 1980).Google Scholar

4 This writer had the privilege of hearing these lectures and being present in these seminars throughout the Winter and Spring terms of 1981–1982. Some of the information for this article is drawn from notes of these lectures and seminars.

5 Pannenberg, Wolfhart, ‘God's Presence in History’, The Christian Century, March 11, 1981, p. 263.Google Scholar

6 Actually, the earliest work which anticipated this development appeared in 1973. In his little book simply entitled Wolfhart Pannenberg (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1973)Google Scholar Alan Galloway noted the importance of the Trinity to Pannenberg's thought. In 1983 the present writer's article on Pannenberg's, trinitarian doctrine of God appeared (‘Trinity and Eschatology: The Historical Being of God in jürgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg’, Scottish Journal of Theology 36: 2 [1983[, pp. 213–227)Google Scholar and in 1984 his dissertation on Pannenberg's doctrine of the Trinity was completed at Rice University. Since then a number of brief interpretations of Pannenberg's developing thought on this theme have appeared. Among the best is Peters, Ted, ‘Trinity Talk, Part II’, Dialogic 26 (Spring, 1987), pp. 133–138.Google Scholar

7 Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Systematische Theologie, Band 1 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1988)Google Scholar. All quotations from this volume are this writer's translations.

8 Ibid., p. 363.

9 Ibid., pp. 363–364. Also see: Pannenberg, Wolfhart, ‘Problems of a Trinitarian Doctrine of God’, Dialog 26: 4 (1987), p. 256.Google Scholar

10 Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Christian Spirituality (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1983), p. 105.Google Scholar

11 Crundfragen 2, p. 122.

12 ‘Problems of a Trinitarian Doctrine of God’, p. 251. For the primary contributions of these three see: Moltmann, Jürgen, The Trinity and the Kingdom of Cod (London: SCM Press, 1981)Google Scholar; Jüngel, Eberhard, God as the Mystery of the World (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1983)Google Scholar; Jenson, Robert, The Triune Identity (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1982).Google Scholar

13 Rahner's, Karl thesis is: ‘The Trinity of the economy of salvation is the immanent Trinity and vice versa.’ (The Trinity, New York: Seabury Press, 1974, p. 22)Google ScholarPeters, Ted had dubbed this axiom ‘Rahner's Rule’ in ‘Trinity Talk, Part I’, Dialog 26 (Winter, 1987), p. 46.Google Scholar

14 Systematische Theologie, pp. 317–318.

15 Ibid., p. 296.

16 Ibid., p. 293.

17 Ibid., p. 330.

18 Grundfragen 2, p. 110.

19 Systematische Theologie, p. 330.

20 Ibid., pp. 304–305.

21 Moltmann, is highly critical of this concept in any form, although his critique seems somewhat in consistent at times as this writer has attempted to show in ‘Trinity and Eschatology’, pp. 224–226.Google Scholar

22 Systematische Theologie, pp. 302–304.

23 Ibid., pp. 309ff.

24 St Augustine, , Faith, Hope and Charity (Enchiridion), trans., Arand, Louis A. (Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1963), p. 46.Google Scholar

25 Systematische Theologie, p. 308.

26 Ibid., pp. 323.

27 Ibid., p. 325.

28 Ibid., pp. 315–317.

29 Ibid., p. 318.

30 Ibid., p. 321.

31 Grundfragen 2, p. 251.

32 Systematische Theologie, p. 322.

33 Ibid., pp. 324–325.

34 Ibid., p. 332.

35 Ibid., p. 326.

36 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics IV/I: The Doctrine of Reconciliation, ed., Bromiley, G. W. and Torrance, T. F. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1956)Google Scholar. In this volume Barth derives the doctrine of the Trinity more from the event of the cross than from the concept of revelation. See especially the section entitled ‘The Way of the Son of God into the Far Country,’ pp. 157–210.

37 Systematische Theologie, p. 288.

38 Ibid., pp. 335ff.

39 Ibid., p. 336.

40 Christian Spirituality, p. 82.

41 Systematische Theologie, p. 337.

42 Ibid., p. 288.

43 Grundfragen 2, p. 86.

44 Systematische Theologie, p. 337.

45 Ibid., p. 339.

46 Ibid., p. 340.

47 Ibid., p. 292.

48 Ibid., p. 293.

49 Ibid., p. 343.

50 Ibid.Pannenberg, has expressed his view of the Spirit's nature and person in some detail in Faith and Reality, trans., Maxwell, John (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977), pp. 20–38.Google Scholar

51 Systematische Theologie, p. 347.

52 Ibid., pp. 349.

53 Ibid., pp. 297–298.

54 ‘Problems of a Trinitarian Doctrine of God’, p. 256.

55 Systematische Theologie, pp. 363–364. footnote number 220.

56 Wagner, Falk, ‘Religiöser inhalt und logische Form, Zum Verhältnis von Religionsphilosophie und Wissenschaft der Logik arn Beispielder Trinitātslehre’ in Die Flucht in den Begriff, Materielen zu Hegels Religionsphilosophie, ed., Graf, Friedrich Wilhelm and Wagner, Falk (Stuttgart: Klett und Cotta, 1982), pp. 216–217Google Scholar. (Translation is this writer's.)

57 Grundfragen 2, p. 108.

58 Ibid., p. 125.

59 Systematische Theloagie, p. 350.

60 Ibid., p. 352.

61 Ibid.

62 Ibid., p. 353.

63 Ibid., p. 355.

64 Ibid., p. 363.

65 ‘Problems of a Trinitarian Doctrine of God’, p. 256.

66 For the best modern defence of the social analogy see Hodgson, Leonard, The Doctrine of the Trinity (New York: Scribners, 1944).Google Scholar

67 ‘Problems of a Trinitarian Doctrine of God’, p. 253.

68 Grundfragen 2, p. 123.

69 See reference in footnote number 12 above. The best exegesis of Rahner's Rule is LaCugna, C. M., ‘Reconceiving the Trinity as the Mystery of Salvation’, Scottish Journal of Theology, 38 (1985), pp. 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

70 However, as this writer attempted to show in ‘Trinity and Eschatology’ (see footnote number 6 above) Moltmann seems quite inconsistent in that he holds to a strong distinction between an ‘inner life’ of the Trinity and a ‘constitution’ of the Trinity.

71 Kasper, Walter, The God of Jesus Christ, trans., O'Connell, Matthew J. (New York: Crossroad, 1984), p. 276.Google Scholar

72 Ibid.

73 Ibid.

74 ‘Problems of a Trinitarian Doctrine of God’, p. 251.

75 Systematische Theologie, p. 359.

76 Ibid., p. 361.

77 This fundamental Pannenbergian thesis, now to be known as ‘Pannenberg's Principle’, has appeared numerous times in his writings. For an early statement of it see Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Basic Questions in Theology 1, trans., Kehm, George H. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), p. 242.Google Scholar

78 Grundfragen 2, pp. 118 and 127.

79 Ibid., p. 123.

80 Systematische Theologie, p. 358.

81 Ibid., p. 360.

82 Ibid.

83 Ibid., p. 359.

84 ‘Problems of a Trinitarian Doctrine of God’, p. 255.

85 Systematische Theologie, p. 359. See also: Jeses — God and Man, trans., Wilkins, Lewis L. and Priebe, Duane A. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1968), pp. 135–137.Google Scholar

86 Grundfragen 2, p. 125.

87 Systematische Theologie, p. 353.

88 References to this ‘ontological priority of the future’ and its significance for the doctrine of God are scattered throughout Pannenberg's writings. For a particularly clear and powerful presentation of it see ‘Appearance as the Arrival of the Future’ in Theology and the Kingdom of God, ed., Neuhaus, Richard John (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1969), pp. 127–143.Google Scholar

89 Hill, William J., ‘The Historicity of God’, Theological Studies, 45 (1984), p. 323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

90 Ibid., p. 324.

91 Pannenberg's ontology clearly subordinates ‘part’ to ‘whole’. See Pannenberg, Wolfhart, ‘The Significance of the Categories “Part” and “Whole” for the Epistemology of Theology,’ Journal of Religion 66: 4 (October, 1986), pp. 369–385.CrossRefGoogle Scholar