SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY

-Volume I-

Wolfhart Pannenberg

Translated by Geoffrey W. Bromiley

William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Grand Rapids, Michigan CONTENTS

Originally published as Systematische Theologie, band 1 © 1988 by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Gottingen, Germany

English translation copyright © 1991 by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. 255 Jefferson Ave. S.E., Grand Rapids, Michigan 49503 Abbreviations viii All rights reserved Foreword X Printed in the United States of America

Reprinted 1998 CHAPTER 1 The Truth of Christian Doctrine as the Theme of Systematic Theology 1 § 1 Theology 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data § 2 The Truth of Dogma 8 Pannenberg, Wolfhart, 1928- § 3 Dogmatics as Systematic Theology 17 [Systematische Theologie. English] Systematic theology I Wolfhart Pannenberg; translated by Geoffrey W. § 4 The Development and Problem of So-called Bromiley. Prolegomena to Dogmatics 26 p. em. § 5 The Truth of Christian Doctrine as the Theme Translation of: Systematische Theologie. of Systematic Theology 48 Includes indexes. ISBN 0-8028-3656-9 (v. 1) CHAPTER 2 The Concept of God and the Question of Its Truth 63 1. Theology, Doctrinal. I. Title. BT75.2.P2613 1991 § 1 The Word "God" 63 230' .044- dc20 91-26339 §2 Natural Knowledge of God and Natural Theology 73 CIP §3 The Proofs of God and Philosophical Criticism of Natural Theology 82 The Biblical quotations in this publication are for the most part from the Revised Theological Criticism of Natural Theology 95 Standard Version of the Bible, copyrighted 1946, 1952 © 1971, 1973 by the Division §4 of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the §5 The "Natural" Knowledge of God 107 U.S.A., and used by permission.

v CHAPTER 2

The Concept of God and the Question of Its Truth

§ 1. The Word "God"

n earlier cultures the words "God" and "gods" had a more or less clearly defined place in the cultural world and human vocabulary. I They were used in relation to the fmal foundations of social and cosmic order and to the courts which guarantee them, to which due honor, attention, and address are to be paid. In modern secular cultures the word "God" has increasingly lost this function, at any rate in the public mind. The reality denoted by the term has thus become uncertain. In the context of a public consciousness that is emancipated from religion, statements about God that presuppose his reality no longer count as factual statements. I This applies to the statements of traditional philo­ sophical theology no less than to those .of Christian tradition and proc­ lamation. In the context of a secular public culture the statements seem to be mere assertions whose truth has yet to be shown. Without testing, their truth, or the truth of their propositional content, is no longer plausible or credible or beyond dispute. Individuals may accept it by a subjective decision, but the public mind in a secular culture will accede to the truth of such assertions only when they are secular in content

1. Cf. I. U. Dalferth, Existenz Gottes und christlicher Glaube. Skizzen zu einer escha­ tologischen Ontologie (1984), pp. 88-89, on the basis ofW. V. 0. Quine's thesis of ontological commitment, From a Logical Point of View (1953; 2nd ed. 1961), pp. 12ff.

63 64 The Concept of God and the Question of Its Truth § 1. The Word "God" 65 and can appeal to academic authority, e.g., that of sociologists or psy­ for religious experience as the source of a new definition of the term.3 chologists. It will not do so if they are statements about God even This is in keeping with the spirit of an empirically minded age. But the though they are more acutely presented than is often the case with the reply is less self-evident than it sounds. A glance at the relation between modish theses of scholars in the humanities. In the public mind state­ faith and experience shows this. The two are by no means identical, though ments about God are mere assertions which are ascribed to the subjec­ very closely related in the Reformation tradition after Luther. Faith orients tivity of the speaker and the truth claim of which not only needs to be itself to Jesus Christ as the revelation of God communicated by the proc­ generally tested before it can be accepted but is for the most part set lamation and teaching of the church. According to Luther this faith is aside in advance, the belief being that the testing will lead nowhere and connected with the experience of despair in face of the law. The message that the truth claims of statements about God are not even worth of the gospel, and faith in it, adds something new to the experience of discussing publicly. conscience. But the message does not derive from it. It is itself the basis Even more incisive is a second change which can be viewed as a of a new experience of comfort and assurance. 4 In the history of Protestant result of the first. With the fading of the concept of God and its function piety the relation between faith and the experience of conscience was given for humanity in the public consciousness of a culture that has become lasting significance by Pietism and the Awakening. But the increasing religiously indifferent, the existence of God has not only become doubtful grounding of faith in the experience of a guilty conscience came under but the content of the concept of God has also become unclear. In the such devastating criticism from the time of Nietzsche and Freud that we discussion of the word "God" which introduces his Foundations of Chris­ can hardly take this path today in trying to show the relevance of the tian Faith, Karl Rahner said that this word has become as enigmatic for Christian faith.5 A more important point in modern discussion is that in us today as a blank face. 2 For this very reason it perhaps seems worth this tradition the concept of God is not based on the experience of con­ discussing to those who are aware of its significance in the history of science but is presupposed in its interpretation. human culture. But it can also have the appearance of an abracadabra Those who want to go back to religious experience in clarification which has no place in our sober modern world. of the concept of God hav.e to work with a broader view of religious It is not surprising, then, that along with other terms from the experience. Such a view has been developed especially by the modern Christian vocabulary the word "God" can seem even to theologians to be English philosophy of religion. Hywel D. Lewis referred in 1950 to wonder an embarrassment for Christian proclamation inasmuch as it prevents as the starting point of a religious sense which "behind" or "above" all secular people from understanding the proclamation. The only problem encounters and facts is aware of a mysterious reality on which everything is that without this word an appeal for faith in Jesus of Nazareth loses its else depends. 6 This description is close to the classical expositions of foundation. If Jesus is just one man among others, and merely a man for William James and Rudolf Otto. Two years earlier in 1957 Ian T. Ramsey all the uniqueness of his life and teaching, then we cannot believe in him had published a work which was much discussed and which answered the in the sense of primitive Christian preaching, and above all we cannot exhort others to believe in him, especially when many of his traditional sayings and even his understanding of himself seem to be odd and to have 3. J, Track, Sprachkritische Untersuchungen zum christlichen Reden von Gott (1977), asks that we base our talk about God on religious experience (p. 242; cf. pp. 185-86, 313-14). been outdated by the march of history. Thus Christian proclamation and Dalferth, Religiose Rede von Gott (1981), also refers to experience as a basis for faith (pp. faith cannot give up the word "God" which underlies what Jesus says 393-494). For him the basis is experience of God's address through Jesus Christ (p. 446; cf. concretely about his "Father," the one being unintelligible without the pp. 469ff., 489). 4. On the tension-filled relation between faith and experience in Luther cf. other. How can we gain new access, however, to what the blank face of P. Althaus, The Theology of Martin Luther (Philadelphia, 1966), pp. 55-63; also U. Kiipf, the word covers and conceals? TRE, X (1982), 114-15. It might seem natural today to reply to this question with a demand 5. B. Lauret, Schulderfahrung und Gottesfrage bei Nietzsche und Freud (1977), has shown that psychological criticism of a sense of guilt is basic to atheism in Nietzsche and Freud. 2. K. Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith (New York, 1978), p. 46. 6. H. D. Lewis, Our Experience of God (London, 1959). 66 The Concept of God and the Question of Its Truth § 1. The Word "God" 67 linguistic challenge to theology by relating the term "religious experience" We can include this whole process of interpretation in the concept of to situations of sudden disclosure.? More strongly than Lewts, Ramsey experience. The difficulty is then to isolate experience as the basis of talk stressed the suddenness of religious experience and its character as insight about God from secondary interpretations. This would be plausible only related to subjective commitment by which all life is changed.8 By no if we could limit experience to perception as distinct from later develop­ means accidentally, perhaps, this reminds us of the relation between per­ ment of it, but attempts to do this have been unsuccessful because per­ ception and feeling in Schleiermacher's theory of religion in 1799, the ception as Gestalt perception is already an interpretation that implies more so as Ramsey, like Schleiermacher, gives religious experience a rela­ far-reaching historically and socially mediated contexts of understanding tion to the whole universe. 9 which are then made hermeneutically explicit, but may also be modified, When it is described in this way, does religious experience open by integration into the nexus of experience. up the way to a clearer defmition of the concept of God? In Ramsey, as Our finding thus far is that although the term "God" has a function in Schleiermacher before him, the reverse is the case. The concept of God in the nexus of religious experience it cannot be derived from perception in serves to interpret experience.lD This fact came out even more clearly in a disclosure situation but serves to interpret what is encountered in it, proving the later discussions of analytical religious philosophy. As encounter with to be the only possible way in which to view and interpret the content of such God, or with a God, religious experience can be presented only in an situations. We must now show more precisely what is the view and interpreta­ interpretation which uses the concept of God.l 1 John Hick in particular tion of that which is disclosed in a disclosure situation when the expression has emphasized that religious experience, like all experience, is bound up "God" is used. Our first point must be that the use of this expression denotes with an interpretation which first perceives and understands what is per­ encounter with Another in the disclosure situation. More precisely, the ceived "as something."l2 Interpretation of the individual experience is situation is experienced as encounter with Another by those who speak of referred to general characteristics which go beyond the detailed impres­ "God" in relation to it. The word "God" is used for this Other.l4 sion of the moment and are set in broader contexts of understanding.B But in what sense is this so? Does the word function as a proper name or as a designation? This is debated.l5 In the background is also the 7. I. T. Ramsey, Religious Language. An Empirical Placing of Theological Phrases relation between a theological and a metaphysical concept of God. Philo­ (London, 1957; paperback ed. 1963), pp. 28-29; cf. pp. 25-26. The latter passage shows sophical analysis treats "God" as a designation even when it postulates for Ramsey's orientation to Gestalt psychology. The introduction (esp. p. 15) refers to the it its own ontological category with only the one instance.16 Theological challenge of linguistic philosophy. 8. Ibid., pp. 40-41. 9. Ibid., p. 41. the perception level of the Christian experience of address "articulated in historical state­ 10. Thus for Ramsey "God" is a key word (ibid., p. 51) to express the totality of ments" (p. 467), i.e., statements about Jesus and his significance (pp. 486ff.). These state­ the commitment which is bound up with religious experience and which cannot be derived ments do not contain mere perceptions but advanced stages of interpretation as well. Track from perceptions (p. 48). For Schleiermacher the concept of God has a place in discussion distinguishes sharply between religious experience in the disclosure situation, to which he of religious experiences. In the 1799 Speeches the concept stands for one among many ascribes the personal character of transcendent encounter, and that of integration into an possible interpretations of the universum which we actively experience in religion (p. 101). orientation to life and action, which makes possible an understanding of the experience In Christian Faith the word "God" is an expression for direct reflection on the feeling of (Sprachkritische Untersuchungen, pp. 254-55). But he admits that there is interpretation even dependence, namely, that on which we throw back our existence (§ 4.4). in direct experience as experience of God (pp. 284-85). 11. Cf. Dalferth, Religiose Rede, pp. 432-33, quoting esp. R. W. Hepburn, Chris­ 14. Thus to describe the word "God" as simply an expression which qualifies a tianity and Paradox (1958), and J, I. Campbell, The Language of Religion (1971). view of life and an orientation tb action rather than the term for a reality is a misunder­ 12. J. Hick, "Religious Faith as Experiencing- As," in Talk of God, ed. G. N. A. standing of what is meant in religious language. Cf. I. U. Dalferth, Existenz Gottes, pp. 89ff., Vesey, Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures II (1967/68), pp. 20-35. Hick in his expositions on the contributions of H. Braun, P. van Buren, and F. Kambartel to this theme. On Kam­ also refers to the Gestalt character of perception but relates it to identifications of the content bartel's proposal that we should understand the word "God" as a syncategorematic expres­ of experience in the form of concepts which as social products are part of the linguistic sion (ZEE 15 [1971] 32-35) cf. esp. Track, Sprachkritische Untersuchungen, pp. 219ff., 224, world of the day. A. Jeffner, The Study ofReligious Language (London, 1972), pp. 112ff., sets 229, 252ff. this description alongside the stress of F. Ferre, Language, Logic and God (London, 1961), 15. Cf. Jrack, Sprachkritische Untersuchungen, pp. 175ff., esp. 185ff.; also Dalferth, on the significance of metaphysical conceptions for interpretation of individual experiences. Religiose Rede, pp. 571-83. 13. So Dalferth, ReligiOse Rede, pp. 454-66. It is not clear how Dalferth can find 16. Cf. M. Durrant, The Logical Status of"God" (London, 1973), pp. 15, 49. 68 The Concept of God and the Question of Its Truth § 1. The Word "God" 69 usage prefers to treat "God" as a proper name. But it cannot restrict itself Yahweh. It functions in Christian theology as a general condition of un­ to this one function. Thus without presupposing a predicative use it would derstanding Christian talk about God. God, whom philosophy already not be possible to speak of the deity of Jesus ChristY Above all in the thought of as one in contrast to the plurality of gods in popular poly­ development of the biblical understanding of God we find both Yahweh theistic belief, really exists in the one God of the Bible, the Father of Jesus and Elohim, Yahweh being solely a proper name, Elohim, though used at Christ. At this point, as regards the unity of God, nonbiblical usage did times as a proper name, denoting a category. It is typical of monotheistic not have to be so radically corrected as in the opposing of Yahweh as the usage that what was at first the term for a category should become the one God to the gods of the Gentiles. name of one alone. This does not alter the fact, however, that "God" would Even more plainly the message of Christian mission in its procla­ originally have been used for a category or as a general designation. Only mation of the revelation of the one God in Jesus Christ, for all its work in this light can we understand its predicative use. Only on this basis can of correction, is still speaking of the same thing that people have hitherto the monotheistic claim be intelligibly made, i.e., as a restriction of the known by the name "God." If Christian theology now rejects the concept category of deity to one alone. of God in philosophical theology that views God as one, arguing that The designation of Yahweh as God and the Christian attributing theology deals only with the Christian God and not another,20 then it is of deity to Jesus Christ make sense only on the condition of an established involuntarily regressing to a situation of a plurality of gods in which pre-Christian and extra-Christian use of the word "God."l8 Only on this Christian talk about God has reference to the specific biblical God as one condition can we understand the thesis of the sole deity of Yahweh, of the God among others. Those who take this line cannot also claim arguments Father of Jesus Christ, of the triune God. The content of the thesis is to for a linguistically grounded uniqueness of God on the basis of the re­ be found in the restriction of a general category to a single instance. This striction of the philosophical discussion of the concept of God to mono­ undoubtedly involves a correction of the extra-Christian use. But it does theism. Those who make the claim must recognize the metaphysical im­ not mean that the use of the same term may not be taken as an indication plications of this description of the usage for the word "God." Christian that the reference is to the same thing. 19 The reference is to the same theology has done so from the very first in what it takes to be its own thing, i.e., to "God" in the absolute, but in a different way and with a basic interests because in so doing it could maintain the universality of what correction. the Bible says about the one God in opposition to popular polytheism The uniqueness of the term "God" as a general designation is and state-protected cults. The difficulties in making what Christianity says important not merely for the history of the origins of biblical and Chris­ about God intelligible today are at least sharpened if Christian theology tian statements about God but also as a condition of the intelligibility of perhaps too hastily follows the modern cultural consciousness in retreat­ talk about God. Proper names make sense only in connection with terms ing from "metaphysics" in the tradition of philosophical theology, and for species, and this applies to the special case of the restriction of the too little considers what this might mean for the validity of theological term for the category to a single instance. The concept of the "divine" as talk about God. We probably have here one of many cases of rash adjust­ a general designation of "gods" has been taken over in Christian theology ment to the spirit of the age. By means of it Protestant theology renders by the metaphysical concept of God which already embraces the unity of no useful service to the intelligibility of what Christianity says about God. the divine as the one origin of the cosmos. This concept, having the form It has been shown that the recourse to experience in clarification of a general description, could play the part in Christian theology that the of talk about God does not succeed because the word "God" is one of the general term "God" (Elohim) had in the early biblical understanding of most important keys to interpretation if we are to understand the content God, especially in making intelligible the assertion of the sole deity of of religious experience. The importance of the reference to religion and religious experience lies elsewhere, namely, in the question of the reality, if any, that corresponds to the concept of God. We shall have to deal with 17. Dalferth, Religiose Rede, pp. 574ff. 18. Ibid., p. 576. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid., p. 563; cf. pp. 566, 568-69, 582. 70 The Concept of God and the Question of Its Truth § 1. The Word "God" 71 this more fully in a later context. The concept of God is presupposed for mate explanation of the being of the world as a whole, namely, by creation. clarification of the content of religious experience, at least in a general In this way it is also the expression and basis of the unconditional com­ sense that can then be more precisely defmed. The tradition of philosophi­ mitment which is bound up with religious experience.22 cal theology is more helpful as regards the general content of the concept Recollection of this function is still connected with the word "God" than is recourse to specific experiences. At issue here is the understanding even in the context of modern secularism. If the word is like a blank face of the world. to us, it reminds us by its very strangeness of the lack of meaning in Philosophical theology has viewed the one God as the origin of the modern life, in which the theme of life's unity and totality is missing and unity of the cosmos. Only conditionally in this regard is it in antithesis to the wholeness of human existence has become an unanswered question. what religious traditions said about the gods. The religions gave the gods What would happen were the word to vanish altogether? Karl Rahner has spheres of operation within the cosmic order, and functions in establishing rightly answered that then we would no longer be confronted by the one it. Philosophical theology is critical of the religions only to the degree that totality of reality or the one totality of our own existence. The word "God," the unity of the cosmos finally demands the unity of its divine origin even and that word alone, does this. 23 if secondarily this might be presented from many angles. Similarly, the Perhaps that was not always the function of the word "God." So reference to the world and the basis of its unity had decisive significance for long as there were many gods, the question of the one totality of the world the development of the faith of Israel in the one God, by way of the thought did not arise as a question that is answered immediately by the existence of the Creator, to firm belief in the sole deity of Yahweh as it is fully set forth of the gods. It found an answer only in the idea of an order in the world in Isa. 40:12-13 and 45:18-21. In no way is it opposed to what the Bible says of the gods which comes to light in the order of the cosmos and underlies about God that philosophical theology made the relation to the world, to social order in the human world. But once the plurality of the gods was the world as a whole, the criterion of its concept of God. Early Christian reduced to the concept of the one God as the origin of the one world, the theology maintained that the God manifest in Jesus Christ is none other word "God" did in fact become a key word for awareness of the totality than the Creator of the world and therefore the one and only God. The of the world and of human life. Pioneering in this regard was the devel­ Creator of the world became present and manifest in Jesus Christ. opment of Israel's faith from monolatry, the worship of only one God, to This content of the word "God" does not derive from any single experience, even any single religious experience,21 although, as we shall 22. Ramsey, Religious Language, p. 53; cf. p. 83 (on creation) and p. 48 (on key consider later, the uniqueness of religious experience corresponds in a words and perception). "Religious commitment" is "a total commitment to the whole special way to interpretation by this word, just as the interpretations of universe" which because of its totality is bound up with the key words which establish the insight to which commitment responds (p. 41). the world in the ancient cultures within which the concept of God devel­ 23. Rahner, Foundations, p. 48. Cf. also T. Rendtorff, Gott- ein Wort unserer oped had a religious origin and character. As Ian Ramsey said, the word Sprache? Bin theologischer Essay (1972), pp. 18ff. In spite of a misunderstood phrase on p. 28, the word "God" is not for Rendtorff a name for the totality of reality (so Track, '~God" in the singular is a key word in a religiously grounded view of the Sprachkritische Untersuchungen, p. 303, n. 64); as he says expressly on p. 31, it is the subject world. It does not primarily describe the content of individual perceptions, of this totality, i.e., the world. Rendtorff is here critical of E. Ji,ingel, "Gott- als Wort nor does it function within such descriptions. It makes possible an ulti- unserer Sprache," in Unterwegs zur Sache (Munich, 1972), pp. 80-104. He adopts and explains in his own way the view of G. Ebeling iq God and Word (London, 1963), p. 63, to which Ji,ingel had objected (p. 84), and which is to the effect that God is already the mystery 21. It is thus no accident that in what Dalferth says about the experience of the of reality prior to the. proclamation of the gospel. Rendtorff, of course, does not agree with divine address in Jesus Christ there is no reference to the world in relation to the word Ebeling's focus on our basic situation as a word situation (p. 57). But he agrees to a large "God." Dalferth himself raises the objection that to be able to experience Jesus as God's extent with what Ebeling says about the question of God as a question that is put to the address the term "God" must not be an empty one for me, but he does not think the conscience, that relates to the totality, the first and the last, and that includes within it the objection is cogent because in it the word "God" is viewed as a general designation and not question of the world and humanity (Word and Faith [London, 1963], p. 412). Ebeling also as a "rigid designator" which names only one individual (ibid., p. 6~0). He overlooks the stresses, of course, the linguistic mediation by way of encounter. There need be no conflict fact that viewing the word as a rigid designator presupposes the umqueness of God and about this so long as it is understood that word and language are more than mere words, the implied relation to the world. Without this implication all talk about an experience of that they have a function in disclosure of reality, and that language itself distinguishes God's address in Jesus Christ is itself empty and says nothing. between word and thing. 72 The Concept of God and the Question of Its Truth § 2. Natural Knowledge of God and Natural Theology 73 monotheism, the conviction that only this one God exists. Pioneering, proofs of God and its criteria for a positive definition of the concept of too, was the philosophical theology of the Greeks, which in a special way God. Before we can arrive at a judicious answer to some of these questions helped to make the Christian message of the revelation of the one God we first need to clarify the expression "natural theology" and its functions to all people (1 Thess. 1:9-10; cf. Rom. 3:29-30) in Jesus Christ intelligible in the traditional dogmatic doctrine of God. and plausible to non-Jews. This, then, is a legacy which the Christianity of a Gentile church cannot lightly disown or do so without far-reaching and momentous consequences. Protestant theology since Ritschl and his school, from which Barth § 2. Natural Knowledge of God and Natural Theology emerged with his repudiation of natural theology, has often failed to understand and appreciate this fact. The spirit of Hellenism, and especially The older Protestant dogmatics, once it began to discuss more thoroughly the philosophical theology of the Greeks, are not to be summarily expelled the concept of theology- from the time of Gerhard in Lutheran dog­ from our Christian understanding as an alien factor which falsifies the matics- differentiated natural and revealed theology within the concept supposedly purely moral message of the gospel. Gentile Christians and a of theologia viatorum.25 There was a model for this distinction in the Gentile church at least cannot evaluate the matter with so little differ­ baroque Scholasticism of Roman Catholicism, but it did not occur in the entiation without destroying the presuppositions of their own turning to High Scholasticism of the 13th century.26 On the other hand it was cus­ the God of the Jews as the one God of all peoples. tomary to speak of a natural knowledge of God (cognitio or notitia na­ To say this, of course, is not to say a great deal about the function turalis) in the sense of Paul's statement in Rom. 1:19-20 to the effect that of philosophical or natural theology in relation to the Christian under­ God's eternal power and deity are manifest to us from creation,27 standing of God: In particular, the mere assertion that we do not have to choose here does not in any way clarify the relation between philosophical Christian theology from the very beginning has either stressed a general knowl­ theology and the knowledge of God which in Christian faith is mediated edge of God or at least treated it as self-evident. But it has been differently by God's historical revelation. This assertion is not to the effect that expounded, and we shall have to speak of this later. Up to the early part of the alongside God's revelation there can be a kind of knowledge of God 20th century in Protestant theology no one ever disputed either the fact that we without God, a knowledge that does not come from God himself. 24 As we have here a different form of knowledge of God from that of the historical have seen earlier, this idea would destroy the concept of God itself. revelation in Christ, or the referring of the Christian message to this knowledge Whether natural theology makes this claim we are not to assume but have by claiming it as a provisional knowledge of the one God whom the Christian yet to investigate. At the same time we must not rule out the possibility, but may well accept it, that in the battle of prominent Protestant theolo­ 25. Only Calixt, in this schema, excluded nattjral theology from the concept of gians in the last two centuries against the influence of natural theology in Christian theology; cf. J, Wallmann, Der Theologiebegriff bei Johann Gerhard und Georg the traditional theological doctrine of God, there are elements of truth Calixt (1961), pp. 97ff. which merit attention. It might well be that the term "natural theology" 26. Cf. U. Kopf, Die Anfiinge der theologischen Wissenschaftstheorie im 13. fahrhundert ( 1974), pp. 231ff., n. 34. But the master concept theologia viatorum for the as distinct from a theology of revelation is not a suitable one and would present form of our knowledge of God (theologia nostra), or at times for that of the original be better dropped, though without abandoning the relevance to the Chris­ state as distinct from that of the saints, comes from Duns Scot us, who distinguished between tian doctrine of God of the tradition of philosophical theology with its our knowledge and God's knowledge of himself, also the knowledge of the saints in heaven; see Lectura in Librum Prim urn Sententiarum, pro!. pars 2 q 1-3, Opera Summa, Vatican ed., vol. 16 (1960), 31-32 (nn. 87, 88); cf. Ord. pro/., p. 3, q 1-3, vol. 1 (1980), 110-11 (n.168), 114 (n.171), 137 (nn. 204ff.). 24. This is the determinative point in Jiingel's argument ( Unterwegs zur Sache, pp. 27. In exegesis of this passage see U. Wilckens, Der Brief an die Romer, 3 vols., EKK 84-85). He has offered a comprehensive study of the concept of God under the title God (1978-1982), I, 105ff.; and for its influence cf. pp. 116ff.; cf. also G. Bornkamm, "The as the Mystery of the World (Grand Rapids, 1983), but treats "mystery" as a term of divine Revelation of God's Wrath (Romans 1-3)," in Early Christian Experience (London, 1969), address (pp. 250ff.). pp. 47-70. 74 The Concept of God and the Question of Its Truth § 2. Natural Knowledge of God and Natural Theology 75 message proclaims. Thus Aquinas called it a cognitio natural is as distinct from the is incompatible with his understanding of the revelation in Christ as the one cognitio supernatural is which is mediated by the historical revelation in Christ. 28 revelation of God. But might there not be here a defect in his own understanding Luther, in spite of his severe criticism of the factual perversion of natural knowl­ of the revelation in Christ? Might it not be a feature of this revelation that it edge, also accepted the apostle's contention that all people, even idolaters, have a presupposes the fact that the world and humanity belong to, and know, the God knowledge of the true God and are thus inexcusable when they do not serve him who is proclaimed by the gospel, even though a wholly new light is shed on this but serve other gods.29 The same is true of Calvin,30 and under the influence of fact by the revelation in Christ? According to John's Gospel did not the Son of Melanchthon the older Protestant theology, both Lutheran and Reformed, arrived God come to his own possession and not to foreign territory (John 1:11)? Of at a positive evaluation of pre-Christian and extra-Christian knowledge of God, course we are also told that his own did not receive him, but the painful sharpness especially as regards what pre-Christian philosophers had to say about the nature of this fact is this: The ones who did not receive him were not strangers but from of God. 31 the very first they were his own people. If this is so, then it cannot have been Criticism of the idea of natural theology began from the time of Schleier­ totally alien to their being or their knowledge, for the being of creatures, even of macher, but before Barth it did not result in contesting of a natural knowledge sinners, is constituted by the creative presence of God, his Logos, and his Spirit of God preceding the revelation in Christ. Even Barth, in his exposition of Rom. among them. Paul at any rate speaks expressly of a divinely disclosed knowledge 1:20-21, said that not of ourselves, but in virtue of God's revelation, by creation, of God's deity from the creation of the world (Rom. 1:20), i.e., long before the we know God very well and thus know that we are guilty before him (CD, I/2, historical revelation of God in Jesus Christ. As G. Bornkamm rightly stresses, this 306-7). But Barth related the origin of this knowledge in revelation to the event knowledge is not just a human possibility that we must first actualize by our own of the revelation in Christ (CD, 11/1, § 26, esp. pp. 113, 116ff.). "It is all ascribed, efforts. It is a divinely based fact which we cannot escape and which proves our reckoned, and imputed to the heathen as the truth about themselves in con­ guilt when we turn to idolatry.32 sequence of the fact that in and with the truth of God in Jesus Christ the truth We have thus to regard as at least misleading the statement of Vatican I of inan has been revealed" (p. 121). This knowledge, then, is not one that we have (1870) that God can be known as the origin and goal of all things from creaturely in ourselves, no matter how covered over and perverted into idolatry, but a things (certo cognosci posse, DS, 2004; cf. 3026). This statement at least suggests knowledge that is ascribed to us only from without. Barth apparently cannot allow that what is at issue is an ability or capability of human reason ( naturali humanae that the proclamation of the revelation of the wrath of God (Rom. 1:18) is rationis lumine) and not the mere facticity of knowledge of God.33 In a more addressed to us on the basis of a preceding knowledge of the same God, for this general sense the facticity includes the possibility, but it is there even when we have no awareness of the possibility. We cannot escape the presence of God. Barth 28. ST 2.2.2a 3 ad 1, which argues that natural knowledge is not enough and was right to criticize the council statement for suggesting that the knowledge of supernatural knowledge is needed (cf. 1.3 a 8). God is a possibility at our disposal (CD, II/1, 79), for he found here a violation 29. WA, 56, 176, 26ff. (on Rom. 1:20). Luther continued (p. 177) that this knowl­ edge embraces God's immediate power, righteousness, immortality, and goodness, and is of his basic principle that God can be known only by God. Unlike Paul, the council inextinguishable (inobscurabilis), though the resultant worship is falsely offered to idols. We did not in fact expressly present the knowledge of God from the works of creation are perhaps to take in the same sense later statements to the effect that reason knows that as a result of divine self-declaration. On the other hand it was obviously not the there is one God but not who he is (WA, 19, 207, 3ff.; cf. the quotations in P. Althaus, intention of the council to rule out this basis of the knowledge or to introduce Theology of Martin Luther, pp. 16ff., nn. 6ff.). Cf. also B. Lohse, Ratio und Fides, pp. 45ff., division into the concept of God as Barth believed (CD, II/1, 79ff.). Insofar as it 59ff. 30. See W. Niese!, Theology ofCalvin (London, 1956), pp. 39ff. In spite of his stress is a matter of stating the fact of a knowledge of God from the works of creation on the sense of divinity that is indestructibly implanted in us (Inst. 1.3, esp. 1.3.3) and on the witness of creation to the existence and glory of the Creator, Calvin denies that in our 32. Bornkamm, Early Christian Experience, p. 54. present state this can lead to a knowledge of God in the full sense of the word. We should 33. DS, 3004. Strangely, even so perspicacious an observer as E. Jiingel ("Das note, however, that he does so only in connection with the corresponding worship of God. Dilemma der natiirlichen Theologie und die Wahrheit ihres Problems," in Entsprechungen: God is not properly known where there is no religion or piety (Inst. 1.2.1). Gott- Wahrheit-Mensch. Theologische Eriirterungen (1980], pp. 158-77) regards the 31. In his 1559 Loci Melanchthon described the Platonic description of God, posse as a relatively critical concept of natural theology. H. Ott goes further in his under­ namely, mens aetema, causa boni in natura, as true, erudite, and well-founded even though standing of the text ofVatican I, arguing that there is natural knowledge of God in principle we need to add to it statements taken from the biblical revelation (CR, 21, 610). On the but in the present state of the race the possibility is never actualized because of sin (Die proofs of God in Melanchthon and his influence on Reformed theology cf. J, Platt, Reformed Lehre des I. Vatikanischen Konzils. Bin evangelischer Kommentar [Basel, 1963], p. 48). This Thought and Scholasticism. The Arguments for the Existence of God in Dutch Theology formulation is even further from Paul than that of the council, since it rules out the facticity 1575-1650 (Leiden, 1982), esp. pp. 3-46 and 49ff. (on Ursinus). of knowledge of God which the apostle emphasizes in Rom. 1:21 (gnontes ton theon). 76 The Concept of God and the Question of Its Truth § 2. Natural Knowledge of God and Natural Theology 77 by the light of human reason, we cannot contradict the council statement from is the talk about God that corresponds to the nature of the divine itself, the NT so long as it is presupposed that this fact has its basis in God himself, who unfalsified by the political interests related to the state cults or by the made himself known to us in his deity from creation. When Vatican II adopted literary imaginings, or lies, of the poets. The philosophical knowledge of the statement of Vatican I in its Constitution on Revelation (DV 6), it set the God is not natural because it is in keeping with human nature or the natural knowledge of God in the framework of salvation history according to the principles or understanding of human reason. It is natural because it divine decree of revelation. corresponds to the nature of the divine or the truth of God in distinction from falsifications in the positive form of religion which rests on human Whereas we have to speak about a natural knowledge of God in positing. Paul's sense as a fact which is true of all people, the expression "natural Stoic usage brought the usage into line with what had been the theology" is not by any means so widespread. To understand the complex goal of the philosophical doctrine of God from the time of the Milesian issue, we need to separate the natural human knowledge of God, no matter nature philosophy. Werner Jaeger has shown that the question of the true how it be described in detail, very sharply from the phenomenon of form of the origin of the world was the motive force behind the develop­ natural theology, which may be related to it in some way but which must ment of pre-Socratic philosophy as opposed to the description of the not be equated with it. The lack of clear differentiation in this matter is earliest philosophers as physicists, which goes back to Aristotle.36 partly responsible for the hopeless confusion in the modern discussion of natural theology. The reason is to be found in the usage of older Protestant The conceptual presuppositions of this inquiry- its historical causes in relation dogmatics, which included under natural theology both our knowledge to acquaintance with foreign cultures th,rough Greek trade and the spread of of God as creatures ( cognitio insita) and the philosophical knowledge of Persian rule to Asia Minor are obscure- are to be found in the fact (1) that the God as the most· important instance of the acquired knowledge of God Greek view of God obviously made it possible for the Greeks to equate alien gods ( cognitio acquisita). If one might very generally see in this, as the older that had similar functions with their own gods and to give them the same names. 37 Protestant theology did, a kind of theology, to do so is to weaken the This was probably the reason why functions or attributes could be detached from historical fact of natural theology as a specific phenomenon. This phe­ the divine names and regarded as divine. Then (2) a view of God which focused 38 nomenon has to do with a special human possibility, namely, the philo­ on the function of authoring immanent processes was dearly bound up with sophical doctrine of God that is developed by argument. ancient Near Eastern cosmogonic and theogonic ideas regarding the origin of the The first example of the expression "natural theology" is found in cosmos as a whole.39 For (3) that which is the origin of all things has to be without Panaetius, the founder of Middle Stoicism, by means of whose links to 36. W. Jaeger, The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers (Oxford, 1947). For the circle of Scipio the Younger Stoic thinking reached Rome in the second discussion of the Aristotelian view cf. pp. 5-6 and p. 194, n. 17. For Jaeger's own view cf. half of the 2nd century B.C. Panaetius used the term for the philosophical pp. 8-9. For arche already in Anaximander cf. pp. 24ff.; for its function see pp. 28ff. doctrine of God as distinct_ from the mythical theology of the poets on 37. Bruno Snell stresses that it was specifically Greek for Herodotus on his visit to Egypt quite naturally to find Apollo, Dionysus, and Artemis in the local gods; see The the one side, and on the other the political theology of the cults which Discovery of the Mind (1953), p. 24. As Snell sees it, this shows that the Greek gods were the states set up and supported.34 The meaning of the term is connected part of the natural order of the world and hence were not restricted by national frontiers with the Sophist question as to what is true by nature, i.e., of itself, as or to specific groups (p. 25). 38. On this function cf. the example which Snell gives (ibid., pp. 30-31) from the opposed to that which owes its validity to human positing (thesis), whether Iliad, where Athena seems to be the author of Achilles' change of mind {1.194-222). In Basic by custom, tradition, or political establishment.35 Natural theology, then, Questions, II, 124-25, I raised the question whether the philosophical question of the arche is a "reversal" of this, so that we can now infer a divine cause from the effects. But the early texts do not give evidence of a formal process of deduction. 34. Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, II, 1009. On Panaetius cf. M. Pohlenz, Die Stoa, 39. For the probable links between the cosmogonic investigations of Milesian I (Giittingen, 1959), 191-207; on his doctrine of the three types of theology, seep. 198 and nature philosophy (as yet not proved) and ancient Near Eastern ideas cf. U. Holscher, II, 100. "Anaximander und die Anfange der Philosophie," Hermes 81 {1953), repr. in Urn die 35. For a classical exposition of this theme cf. F. Heinimann, Nomos und Physis Begriffswelt der Vorsokratiker, ed. H.-G. Gadamer (Darmstadt, 1968), pp. 95-176; cf. esp. pp. (Basel, 1945, 1972 ed.), esp. pp. 110-62. 129-36 for Thales of Miletus. 78 The Concept of God and the Question of Its Truth § 2. Natural Knowledge of God and Natural Theology 79 beginning or end, immortal and all-embracing, possessing divine attributes to an lifestyle and idolatry of the philosophers. 44 We cannot understand this even higher degree, and thus surpassing in deity the gods of the native mythical properly if we see in it only an adjustment to the intellectual climate of tradition.40 the cultural world in which they had to proclaim the Christian gospel. Here much more was at stake than making pedagogic contact. At stake Early natural theology did not develop proofs that God exists.lt took was the truth of the Christian God as not just the national God of the a divine origin of things for granted. Its theme was not doubt as to the Jews but the God of all peoples. 45 The natural theology of the philosophers existence of the divine but the question of its specific nature. We see this had formulated a criterion for judging whether any God could be seriously already in the various theses oflonic nature philosophy regarding the divine considered as the author of the whole cosmos, and Christian theology had origin. The differences are of such a kind that we can reconstruct a history to meet this criterion if its claim could be taken seriously that the God 41 of the problem from the sequence of attempted solutions. In the critical who redeems us in Jesus Christ is the Creator of heaven and earth and opposition to the mythical tradition a high degree of agreement was quickly thus the one true God of all peoples. Accepting the philosophical criterion reached regarding the unity, spirituality, immortality, and eternity of the did not have to rule out critical revision of the formulas of philosophical divine origin. From its function as the main basis of all change it was soon theology, though the revision was so slight and partial in the fathers that seen to be itself immutable.42 At least some of the arguments that aimed to we can hardly complain of excessive harshness.46 The revision, however, elucidate the nature of the divine origin could also be used to prove the had also to justify itself by philosophical arguments if it was to claim the existence of this kind of deity. Thus according to Xenophon Socrates took universality with which the one and only God must be declared. up an argument which Anaxagoras had supposedly used for the spirituality The apostle Paul implicitly gave Christian theology this task when of the divine origin on the basis of the order that we find in the natural world he said of the gods that the Galatians had worshiped prior to their con­ and applied it to establish belief in the existence of a wise and friendly version that in contrast to the God of the Christian message they "are by architect who has so admirably arranged all things (Mem. 1.4.2ff.). In nature no gods" (physei me ousin theois, Gal. 4:8). This statement implies Platonic efforts to show that a spiritual principle is needed to explain that the God of the Bible whose revelation the Pauline gospel proclaimed physical movements, and in the modification of this line of argument by is the only true God, i.e., the only God who is God by nature. Paul's 43 Aristotle, we then find the beginnings of a proof of God from motion. formulation fits in exactly with the philosophical question of natural Thus the question of the nature of the divine origin merged into an theology in the original sense, namely, the question as to what is by nature argument for its existence. It is important, however, that the question of the divine.47 Christian thinking, then, could not evade discussion of the philo­ nature of the divine was at the center of the natural theology of the sophical criterion of the genuinely divine that we must regard as the philosophers, for only from this standpoint can we understand their critical world's origin. It had either to show that the God of Christian procla- attitude to the mythical tradition. In this light we can understand the appropriation of the results of 44. Cf. my Basic Questions, II, 134ff. ("The Appropriation of the Philosophical the natural theology of the philosophers by early Christian theology. In Concept of God as a Dogmatic Problem of Early Christian Theology," 119-83). fact we find it everywhere in the fathers in spite of their attacks on the 45. This was what compelled Christian faith to understand itself in the speech of philosophy; see E. Jiingel, "Das Dilemma der naturlichen Theologie und die Wahrheit ihres Problems," in Entsprechungen, pp. 158-77,162. But this compulsion could hardly arise solely 40. Cf. Jaeger, Theology, pp. 29ff. and nn. 44ff. on the concept of the divine and on out of the process of critical appropriation as Junge! thinks (p. 162). Anaximander; also Holscher, Begriffswelt, pp. 174-75. 46. Cf. my Basic Questions, II, 134ff. Junge! (Entsprechungen, p. 164) has rightly 41. Cf. esp. Holscher, Begriffswelt. traced back the need to contest the philosophical knowledge of God, even if on the level of 42. See my Basic Questions, II, 124ff. philosophy, to the dubious "convertibility" of the terms nature and creation. The difference 43. Plato in his Laws (893b-899c) could use this line of argument to prove the as I see it in the essay quoted above is between a historical and an ahistorical view of the existence of the gods. But he had earlier used it to prove the immortality of the soul world. (Phaedrus 245 c 5-246 a 2). Aristotle then tried to put the matter in such a way that the 47. See my Basic Questions, II, 136-37. Junge! in debate with me (cf. n.45 above) Platonic idea of a self-movement of the soul, which made no sense to him, would be refers neither to this passage in Paul nor to the problem which it poses and which is decisive dispensable (Met. 1071 b 3-1072 b 13; cf. Phys. 256 a 13-260 a 10). for Christian reception of the older natural theology. 80 The Concept of God and the Question of Its Truth § 2. Natural Knowledge of God and Natural Theology 81 mation meets the criterion, having the attributes formulated by philoso­ identical with a purified form of true natural theology, i.e., theology phy, or that the criterion is not properly formulated, being inadequate to commensurate with the nature of God. He believed that this theology had describe the function of authorship that is indispensable to God. found its clearest expression in the biblical testimony. Although the fathers in fact took up the task, there is relatively The view which we fmd in Augustine concerning the relation be­ litde express discussion of the expression "natural theology." We find tween the biblical revelation of God and the concept of natural theology occasional mention in Tertullian (Ad Nat. 2), Eusebius of Caesarea (Praep. changed in the Latin Middle Ages. From the 12th century, especially under ev. 4.1), and especially Augustine (De civitate Dei). Augustine knew the the influence of Gilbert of Poitiers, the idea increasingly gained ground Stoic division of theology into three parts which went back to Publius that only the unity of God, not his trinity, is accessible to rational knowl­ Mucius Scaevola and had been handed down by Marcus Terentius Varro, edge.52 When Aristotle became the normative philosopher of the age and in which it had been transformed into a defense of state religion. 48 instead of Plato, this limitation of philosophical theology came more Although Varro was admired for his learning, Augustine criticized him sharply into focus. Aquinas differentiated what is accessible to rational for censuring only mythical and not also political theology and wanting knowledge very clearly from the articles of faith and put it in preambles the natural theology of the philosophers to be only a matter for academic to his treatment of the latter (ST 1.2 ad 1). Yet even Aquinas could still discussion ( Civ. Dei 6.5). Augustine himself made a special attack on deal with the doctrine of God, including the Trinity, within an argument political theology, which he rightly saw to be closely linked to mythical presenting God as the first cause of the world, so that he was not yet fully theology (6.7). At root he took a favorable view of the natural theology distinguishing between natural and supernatural knowledge. Only later of the philosophers, the philosopher being a lover of God.49 But this is Thomism, Baroque Scholasticism, and Neo-Scholasticism constructed the not equally true of all philosophers. A survey of the different schools full two-story theory of natural and supernatural theology which is now (8.2ff.) shows that among them the Platonists are closest to Christianity, judged so critically by Roman Catholic theologians.S3 especially on account of their spiritual view of God (8.5). Paul's statement When natural theology reappeared in Baroque Scholasticism and in Rom. 1:19 applies especially to them, for they have seen the invisible older Protestant theology as the opposite of revealed theology, it had power and divinity of God (8.6). Yet in spite of this closeness Augustine undergone a radical change of meaning. "Natural" no longer meant "in is not uncritical of Plato and the Platonists. His criticism focuses, however, accordance with the nature of God" but "in accordance with human on anthropology and the doctrine of the soul. so It hardly touches on the nature." The term thus reminded theologians of the limitations of human doctrine of God. As he sees it, Platonists know the Trinity even though reason face-to-face with the supernatural reality of God. On the other what they say about the doctrine is not free from objection (10.23, 29). hand, when understood in this way, natural theology could commend a The incarnation alone is unknown to them (10.29). form of knowledge of God that is compatible with us and our human It is plain that for Augustine the Christian doctrine of God did not nature. From this angle there developed in the 17th and 18th centuries a differ in principle from the natural theology of the philosophers in its new clash of the old opposites physis and thesis, of the freedom of nature Platonic form. 51 Natural theology was not a preparatory stage for Chris­ and the positive character of human tradition and positing. After the tian theology. As Augustine saw it, the Christian doctrine of God was disastrous religious wars the conflicting claims to revelation which the different parties made seemed to be mere assertions of tradition, and since 48. M. Pohlenz, Die Stoa, I, 262-63. Augustine mentions Scaevola in Civ. Dei 4.27 and enters into debate with Varro. 49. Civ. Dei 8.1: If wisdom is God, by whom all things are made as divine authority 52. See M. A. Schmidt, Gottheit und Trinitaet nach dem Kommentar des Gilbert and truth show, the true philosopher is a lover of God. Cf. 8.11. Porreta zu Boethius De Trinitate (Basel, 1956). 50. Cf. my deliberations in "Christentum und Platonismus ... ," ZKG 96 (1985) 53. Cf. W. Kasper, Der Gott ]esu Christi (Mainz, 1982), p. 102. At issue are the 147-61, esp. 152ff. results of the debates about the so-called nouvelle theologie which took place in the two 51. Cf. Civ. Dei 8.10.2, which says that all philosophers who, like the Platonists, decades after World War II, esp. under the impact of B. de Lubac, Surnaturel. Etudes teach the one true God as the cause of the universe, the light of truth, and the source of historiques (Paris, 1946). For a brief survey cf. H. Kung, Does God Exist? (New York, 1980), blessedness, agree with us. pp. 518-28. § 3. The Proofs of God and Philosophical Criticism 83 82 The Concept of God and the Question of Its Truth present life. To be sure, some form of knowledge of God is always part of the religious truth claims discredited one another it seemed best to look our nature, but in this life we attain to it only by way of knowledge of the to what is natural to us as the basis of a new social order and culture. In material world, by experience of things that we know through the senses. 54 this regard the Enlightenment was certain that what corresponds to This view was the result of Aristotelian empiricism. Thus for Aquinas, human nature truly corresponds to God, God being also the Creator of unlike theologians in the Augustinian tradition like Bonaventura or Henry humanity and human reason. of Ghent, experience of the world is the only way to knowledge of God. It has been rightly objected against the Enlightenment view of In him, then, proofs derived from experience of the world are of fun­ humanity that it found no more than a minor place for the brokenness damental importance for the knowledge of God. of human reality. It did not let this affect its trust in reason. Nevertheless, In the main the basic function of the proofs is the same for modern this fact is only of limited importance in the present inquiry because a philosophical theology, though interest in them does not focus so exclu­ sense of nonidentity is possible only as a foil to knowledge of identity, sively as in Aquinas on proofs derived from the world. At the heart of the and therefore of truth as well. Stress on the perversion of sin should not discussion for the last two centuries has been the ontological proof which be pushed so far theologically that we are no longer to be claimed as relates the existence of God to the concept of his nature or essence and creatures of God. This means, however, that there is always correspon­ bases it upon this. 55 Descartes put the ontological proof which Anselm dence between human nature and its Creator. This is true, of course, only had formulated and Aquinas had rejected on a wholly new foundation. 56 if there is a Creator. Whether there can be certainty about this on the basis of us and our riature is the problem of the proofs of God which have thus 54. De verit. 1.3 1 ad 1. Our striving for happiness is accompanied by a confused become a critical point in the modern form of natural theology. knowledge of God, but God is not known in this way as God (ST 1.2 a 1 ad 1). 55. This is the precise point of the description of God as a necessary being. In his discu~ion o~ the q~estion ."Is God Necessary?" (God as the Mystery, pp. 14-35), Jiingel did not differentiate this meanmg from that of a "worldly" necessity of God (pp. 17ff.), i.e., the necessity of God's existence as the cause of that of the world (cf. pp. 29-30). The idea of § 3. The Proofs of God and Philosophical Criticism God as a necessary being (also in Descartes and Leibniz) does not have his relation to the of Natural Theology ~?rid as its c<;>ntent, nor his necessity for the existence of the human res cogitans (Jiingel, Ibid.: ~~· 119-20). Its point is simply that God exists absolutely. He is, and there is no possibility that he might not be. His existence is inseparable from the concept of his essence. If knowledge of God is to be a matter of natural theology in the sense Those who understand the concept of a necessary being will not find Jiingel's thesis that of being achieved by rational reflection and arguments, then it will G~d is "~ore than necessary" (p. 24) a contribution to critical discussion of the concept. finally rest on proofs of God. To be sure, natural theology embraces It IS meamngful, however, as an expression of God's freedom in relation to the world. God is in fact more than the origin of existence which must be presupposed as necessary for the much more than proofs of God. It covers the attributes that we are to world. As Creator he is the free origin of the world. He is also free as the world's Reconciler ascribe to God and clarification of the way in which we arrive at them. and Rede~mer. This does no,t have to ~ean, however, that we deny his necessity for the Today it also covers the duty of worshiping God and related themes, at world. It IS part of the worlds creaturehness that it needs God. To contest God's necessity for the world is to contest its creatureliness. This is true whether or not we know God as least when natural theology is not clearly differentiated from natural the world's Creator and Sustainer from the world itself, whether or not there is an under­ religion. But the relevance of these detailed themes depends on the standing of th~ world within which the postulate of the existence of God is necessary for presupposition of the existence of God, and if the knowledge of God an understandmg of the world. The modern understanding of the world which does not view Go~'s. e~istence as nec~ssary for it necessarily has to be described as defective by is thought of as acquired, it depends finally on arguments for the theology If It IS prepared to g1ve up the doctrine of creation. existence of God. 56. R. Descartes, Meditationes de prima philosophia (1641), V, 7ff. Cf. D. Henrich, This was already the view of Aquinas, though he did not use the Der ontologische Gottes?eweis. Sein Problem und seine Geschichte in der Neuzeit (Tiibingen, expression "natural theology" for his rational doctrine of God, and was ~960~, pp. 1?-22. Hennch shows that the thought of God as a necessary being, and of the ~dentlty ofh1s essence and his existence, was of decisive importance for Descartes' reground­ also aware of a nonthematic relatedness of human beings to God as the mg of the proof and its impact. In this light it is not very convincing when Jiingel argues supreme good. As he saw it, we attain to knowledge and recognition of ~at. De~cartes destroyed ,certainty of God, for to be able to say this he had to make a basic God, to an idea of God, only by experience of the world, at least in this d1stmctwn between Gods essence and his existence (God as the Mystery, p. 124).