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Wesleyan Theological Journal Volume 16, Number 1, Spring, 1981 Presidential Address: History and Hermeneutics: A Pannenbergian Perspective Laurence W. Wood 7 John Wesley’s Approach to Scripture in Historical Perspective R. Larry Shelton 23 The Devotional Use of Scripture in the Wesleyan Movement William Vermillion 51 A Wesleyan Interpretation of Romans 5 — 8 Jerry McCant 68 Charles Williams’ Concept of Imaging Applied to the “Song of Songs” Dennis Kinlaw 85 A Problem of Unfulfilled Prophecy in Ezekiel: The Destruction of Tyre David Thompson 93 Notes on the Exegesis of John Wesley’s Explanatory Notes upon the New Testament Timothy L. Smith 107 6 HISTORY AND HERMENEUTICS: A PANNENBERGIAN PERSPECTIVE by Laurence Wood What is the relation of history and hermeneutics? This has been a question of much debate in contemporary theology. It is well known that the theological giants of this century-Barth, Bultmann, and Tillich-believed that critical history raised serious problems for Christian faith. In order to protect the purity of faith from the onslaughts of critical history, revelation was identified exclusively with the Word of God. Not history but language was thus the primary locus of revelation. In this way the truth of faith could not be put at the mercy of the critical historian. In Bultmann‟s kerygmatic theology and Barth‟s theology of the Word of God, the primary locus of revelation was centered in the Word, thus putting revelation outside the possibility of critical inquiry. Though Barth added historical elements to his dogmatics, revelation itself did not come under the general category of verifiable truth. Thus, revelation was seen as the self- authenticating Word of God. Ebeling and Fuchs have modified Bultmann‟s “demythologizing” into the understanding of the linguisticality of reality, i.e., language is not a secondary objectification, but the reality of revelation itself coming into verbal expression. Revelation thus occurs through and in words, for words let reality be. This experience of faith is called a language event. However, this language event preeminently exemplified and grounded theologically in the historical Jesus is not an assertion that can be objectively analyzed, but rather, it is a communication between persons as an encounter, an “apprisal.”„ In contrast to this neo-orthodox understanding of revelation as encounter through word, Wolfhart Pannenberg (the now well-known professor of Munich) radically redefines revelation in terms of history as the comprehensive whole of reality. Here the emphasis is not upon linguisticality, but upon the historicality Geschichtlichkeit) of all reality.2 Critical history is thus not a problem for Pannenberg. Rather, it is the solution to the problem of the negative alliance set up between faith and history by the neo-orthodox champions of the Word of God theology. Of course, he has radically overhauled critical history as it had come to be practiced. He specifically rejected its positivistic presuppositions and its absolutizing of 7 the principle of analogy which precluded the possibility of any absolutely unique event occurring in history. His positive attitude toward critical history has been like a breath of fresh air. I would like to focus my address on his use of the historical method in doing theology. The central motif of his theology is-theological knowledge is critical historical knowledge. The knowledge of revelation is not a supra-historical knowledge as though revelatory events occurred in a historical vacuum. The knowledge (i.e., insight)3 which faith presupposes is a knowledge of history which is accessible to human comprehension. To set the knowledge of revelation over against natural knowledge “is in danger of distorting the historical revelation into a gnostic knowledge of secrets.”4 Pannenberg is thus projecting a theology of reason in which it is asserted that God has made Himself known within the context of our natural processes of thought. In thus emphasizing a theology of reason, Pannenberg dislikes the category of a supernatural order of knowledge as opposed to a natural order5 an exaggerated manner, his polemic is: “THE HISTORICAL REVELATION IS OPEN TO ANYONE WHO HAS EYES TO SEE.”6 Pannenberg further polemicizes a strong methodically- objective approach in this way: Nothing must mute the fact that all truth lies right before the eyes, and that its appropriation is a natural consequence of the facts. There is no need for any additional perfection of man as though he could not focus on the “supernatural” truth with his normal equipment for knowing. The event, which Paul witnessed, took place totally within the realm of that which is humanly visible. In particular, the Holy Spirit is not an additional condition without which the event of Christ could not be known as revelation.7 This means a knowledge of revelation is a knowledge of history, i.e., what factually happened in the space-time spectrum. What cannot be ascertained in the biblical traditions by means of the historical-critical method cannot be true for Christian faith. This means what is theologically true cannot be historically false.8 But, it is also saying that only those theological truths which can be sufficiently verified according to a critical reconstruction of the biblical traditions are to be considered valid.9 In this way, Pannenberg intends to overcome the trend in theology which locates revelation in the moment of faith‟s experience rather than in a reasoned knowledge of what is transient and concrete. Thus, “Christian faith must not be equated with a merely subjective conviction that would allegedly compensate for the uncertainty of our historical knowledge about Jesus.”10 This would only make faith indistinguishable from superstition. Pannenberg thus sees the task of the theologian to be one of critically assessing the truth-claim of Christian faith. For much too long a time faith has been misunderstood to be subjectivity‟s fortress into which Christianity could retreat from the attacks of scientific knowledge. Such a retreat into pious subjectivity can only lead to destroying any consciousness of the truth of the Christian faith.11 8 This leads Pannenberg to say: “Faith can breathe freely only when it can be certain, even in the field of scientific research, that its foundation is true.”12 For example, the historical character of the resurrection of Jesus (without which Pannenberg argues that there can be no Christology cannot be ruled out a priori. It cannot be deprived of its historical past- ness and then be reinterpreted existentially. If there is any present significance to the resurrection kerygma, then the kerygma must be taken seriously when it reports an event that happened in the past. Thus, Pannenberg points out that faith in its claim to absolute certainty must reckon with the probabilities of historical knowledge. In other words, there can be no absolute dualism of the subjective certainty of truth and the objectivity of knowledge (i.e., insight). That is, one must not speak of the resurrection kerygma solely in terms of its existential relevance without also a critical assessment of its historical factuality, even as in philosophy Hegel (whose categories are decisive in Pannenberg‟s theology of history) has argued that one cannot divorce appearance and reality as though what appears is relevant while the question of its reality is irrelevant. Such a dualism, Pannenberg would argue, is not any less unacceptable to philosophy than a dualism of faith and a historical knowledge of facts is to theology. In arguing for the corporeality of Jesus‟ resurrection (which is the central event in his theology of universal history), Pannenberg pursues a closely reasoned argument which includes: (1) Delineating the Old Testament and Jewish eschatological expectation of the general resurrection of the dead, (2) a historical-critical analysis of the resurrection traditions, (3) a careful exegesis of the resurrection texts, (4) a philosophical reflection on the possibility of Jesus‟ resurrection, and (5) anthropological considerations concerning man‟s hope for life beyond death.13 There are, however, two especially significant factors Pannenberg considers in establishing the resurrection as a historical event. First, there is the language of the Old Testament and the Jewish eschatological expectation in which Jesus‟ resurrection was expressed. This prior expectation of the general resurrection of the dead presupposes that the Jewish community possessed a distinctive thought-pattern in which the resurrection as an expression of an imperishable life was clearly distinguished from this worldly- transitory experience of life. Hence the encounters with the risen Lord were expressed in already-existing thought-patterns, such as “resurrection from the dead,” “rising from sleep,” etc. (Isa. 26:19; Dan. 12:2; 1 Thess. 4:13ff.; 1 Cor. 11:30; 15:6, 20, 51). The historical occurrence of Jesus‟ resurrection thus did not need to be interpreted for His-contemporaries, but its interpretation was inherent in the event itself because the disciples already had a prior conception of the resurrection from the dead. Consequently, the resurrection of Jesus is described not as a mere resuscitation of the dead to a temporal life, but the transformation of an old body into a “spiritual body” (l Cor. 15:35-56). This is to say, the early Christian community knew the difference between “the intended reality and the mode in which it is expressed in language.”14 Without intending to negate the facticity
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