Revelation & History

Ever since World War II, German Protestantism has been dominated intellectually by Demythologizer Rudolf Bultmann and the existentialist theologies of his Marburg disciples. In recent years, however, Bultmann's radical skepticism concerning the historic character of Christian revelation has come under concerted attack by a spirited group of younger theologians known as the "Pannenberg circle," after Wolfhart Pannenberg of Mainz University. It is Bultmann's conviction that the Gospels tell almost nothing authentic or trustworthy about the Jesus of history. Pannenberg's answer is that Christianity is nothing if it is not historically true.

The son of a Nazi customs official from Stettin, Pannenberg, 38, did his doctoral studies in theology at the University of Heidelberg; he acknowledges a major intellectual debt to Heidelberg's Old Testament Scholar Gerhard von Rad. At the university, Pannenberg became the leader of a group of young thinkers who met for late-night discussions of theology, and who in 1961 formulated their principles in a joint volume of essays called Revelation as History. Although not widely known in the U.S., Pannenberg has lectured at the University of Chicago, Harvard and Claremont, and three of his major works are in the process of translation into English. Just published is an introduction to Pannenberg's thinking called Theology as History (Harper & Row; $6). Edited by Theologians James Robinson and John Cobb of Claremont, the book contains a long, learned introduction by Robinson, an essay by Pannenberg, and critical commentaries by three leading U.S. theologians.

Scriptural Authoritarianism. Pannenberg's dispute with Bultmann centers on revelation and its relationship to history. To Bultmann, faith and reason are totally separate, as are God's history and man's; the divine will is known only through the kerygma (proclamation) --God's word as contained in Scripture, which is understandable only through faith. Pannenberg argues that Bultmann preaches a kind of "Biblical authoritarianism" of God's word and, in effect, pushes Christian faith outside the boundaries of history. On the contrary, Pannenberg insists, God is not only the ground of all existence, but all of history is a revelation of his existence. A notable example of this is the history of ancient Israel, as recorded in the Bible. "It was the Jews who first discovered divine reality within the changes of history," contends Pannenberg. "For this reason they, unlike other peoples, did not try to stem themselves against the new, but continued to see divine manifestations within the changes of history itself."

The most explicit expression of God's presence for Christianity is the appearance of Jesus--which to Pannenberg is not an isolated, inexplicable miracle but an inevitable progress in the course of divine history. Pannenberg goes so far as to argue that "Jesus brought hardly anything that was new. He claimed the God of Israel as his authority, a God already known to his hearers. He stood in a tradition that expected the coming of this God, and it was just this future which he announced to be near." Only because Jesus emphasized so strongly man's relationship with God did he clash "with other elements of Israelite tradition, especially with the traditional validity of the Law."

By far the most controversial of Pannenberg's theses is his contention that the Resurrection is, properly understood, a historical event. Largely because the idea of a return from death is a concept incomprehensible to modern man, Bultmann considers the Resurrection a trans-historical myth. Pannenberg concedes that there is no way of knowing the exact mode of the Resurrection--was it simply a special vision given to Jesus' disciples, or a reconstitution of his body?--but he insists that there is no justification for dismissing it as legend. The fact of the Resurrection, he declares, was one of the primitive elements of Christian teaching, and its conceptual possibility is foreshadowed in apocalyptic passages of the Old Testament--notably in Isaiah 26:19. Pannenberg further argues that the Resurrection is God's proof to man that biological death is not the end to existence, and that there is an ultimate meaning and purpose to history.

"Theonomous" Controller. Pannenberg's own theories have inevitably come in for attack--and not only from the Bultmannites. Conservative Protestants are offended by his opinion that the virgin birth is probably a legend. More radical critics point out that it is beyond the province of history to establish the Resurrection as a fact, since the historian can deal only with events that are within the range of human experience. American "Death of God" Theologian William Hamilton contends that Pannenberg is simply reviving the outdated medieval concept of God as the "theonomous" controller of all forces in the universe--an idea totally alien to an age of secularity.

It remains to be seen whether Pan nenberg--who is now working out the philosophical foundation for a full-scale theology of history--proves to be an effective counter to Bultmann. But even Pannenberg's critics concede that he has once again raised several traditional issues that have been largely ignored by contemporary German theologians. In contrast to both Bultmann and Switzerland's Karl Barth, who strongly emphasizes the uniqueness of God's revelation in Christ, Pannenberg stresses the continuity of Old and New Testaments. Compared with theologies that place exclusive stress on Biblical authority, Pannenberg's offers a rightful reminder that there may be other ways by which man can come to know of God. Most important, perhaps, his conviction that revelation is historical in character may well force other theologians to examine again whether the assumed gap between secular and sacred events is all that unbridgeable.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.