Constitutive Relationality in Anthropology and Trinity: The Shaping of the Imago Dei Doctrine in Barth and Pannenberg

Neue Zeitschrift fur Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie

Volumn 39, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 304-322

  Shults, F Leron ^a  

^a BETHEL UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 78751564559     PISSN: 00283517     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1515/nzst.1997.39.3.304     Document Type: Article

References (61)

1. Colin Gunton has recently argued that the Christian doctrine of the triune Creator discloses that “of both God and man it must be said that they have their being in their personal relatedness: their free relation-in- otherness.” The One, The Three and the Many: God, Creation and the Culture of Modernity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 229. He further suggests that the conceiving and practicing of relationality as characterized by the dynamic of “gift and reception” is a critical task for theology. Following up this suggestion, my goal is to explore how the doctrine of imago Dei tends to function regulatively in the conceptualization of relationality in two major theologians. From a systematic- theological viewpoint, this essay raises the question of the mutual shaping (internally) of doctrinal formulations of divine and human nature. From a philosophy of religion viewpoint, it examines the mutual shaping (externally) of the disciplines of anthropology and theology. Along similar lines, I have elsewhere illustrated the regulative function of relationality (of a very different kind) in Schleiermacher's theological anthropology, which ramifies through his entire dogmatics; “Schleiermacher's Reciprocal Relationality: The Regulative Principle of his Theological Method” Neues Athenaeum [in press].
2. Pannenberg, Anthropology in Theological Perspective (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984), p. 16.
3. Pannenberg addresses the issue of Buber's influence on Barth in his recent Problemgeschichte der neueren evangelischen Theologie in Deutschland (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), especially pp. 197, 251.1 say “quasi-Buberian” because Pannenberg recognizes other influences on Barth's anthropology, especially
4. Hegel, in his “Die Subjektivität Gottes und die Trinitätslehre: Ein Beitrag zur Beziehung zwischen Karl Barth und der Philosophie Hegels,” (1977),
5. reprinted in Grundfagen systematischer Theologie, Band 2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980): 96-111.
6. While analogia fidei is not itself a “method,” it certainly has methodological implications, as B. McCormack notes, Karl Barth's Critically Realistic Dialectical Theology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), p. 19. What some of these implications are is the topic of the next section. However, I would suggest (more strongly than McCormack) that the analogia fidei not only has implications, but also ramifications for method so that Barth may at times treat analogia fidei in such a way that it becomes almost hypostasized into a method.
7. Originally published in 1960. Reprinted as “Philosophy and Theology” in H. Martin Rumscheidt, ed., The Way of Theology in Karl Barth: Essays and Comments (Allison Park, PA: Pickwick, 1986), p. 84.
8. § 46 treats “man as soul and body” and § 47 treats “man in his time.” Although both of these sections are critical for understanding Barth's anthropology, for the sake of space I am limiting the discussion to § 44 and § 45, where he lays out most clearly the aspects of the correspondence between anthropology and trinity in terms of the imago Dei.
9. Especially in Jesus-God and Man, 2nd ed., trans L. Wilkins and D. Priebe (Philadelphia, Westminster, 1977), pp. 34 f. The original was published in 1964 as Grundzüge der Christologie (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn), see pp. 26 f. Even then, however, Pannenberg accepted a “relative justification” for the approach “from above,” which he also emphasized in the “Afterword” to the fifth edition (1976).
10. Pannenberg, Theology and the Philosophy of Science (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976), p. 368-371.
11. In volume I of his Systematic Theology (trans G. W. Bromiley, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), he reaffirms his contention that anthropology has “fundamental theological rank” as a basis for a theology of religion (p. 158).
12. Systematic Theology, II, p. 225.
13. Systematic Theology, p. 290.
14. Systematic Theology, I, p. 257.
15. Pannenberg, “Die Rationalität der Theologie,” in Fides quaerens Intellectum: Beiträge zur Fundamentaltheologie, M. Kessler, W. Pannenberg, H. J. Pottmeyer, eds. (Tubingen: Francke, 1992), p. 543.
16. See also Pannenberg, “Eine philosophisch-historische Hermeneutik des Christentums,” in Verantwortung für den Glauben, P. Neuner and H. Wagner, eds. (Freiberg: Herder, 1992), p. 46, and “Theological Appropriation of Scientific Understandings,” in C. R. Albright and J. Haugen, eds. Beginning with the End: God, Science and Wolfhart Pannenberg (Chicago: Open Court, 1997), pp. 438 ff.
17. Systematic Theology, I, p. 257.
18. This was the case for Pannenberg even in his earlier Theology and the Kingdom of God (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969), where he makes trinitarian language central for his view of time and history: “the trinitarian doctrine is the ultimate expression for the one reality of the coming God whose Kingdom Jesus proclaimed” (p. 71).
19. George Hunsinger, How to Read Karl Barth: The Shape of His Theology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), calls Barth's view of “I-Thou” relations the most obvious expression of the “motif of personalism.” His concern is to show how this motif is the goal of the “objectivist” motif (p. 41) and is structured by the “particularism” motif (p. 195). Although my project in this essay overlaps Hunsinger's purpose in the sense that we are both inquiring into the underlying thought-forms of Barth's theology, my questions are more specific: Why this relationality? Where did it come from? Does it regulate Barth's construction of doctrine in ways that he did not recognize?
20. Gilbert Widmer, “L'homme créé à l'image de Dieu chez Calvin et Barth.” In: De dignitate hominis, Holderegger, Imbach, Suarez, eds. (Wien: Freiburg, 1987), p. 229.
21. Cynthia Campbell, Imago Trinitatis: An Appraisal of Karl Barth's doctrine of the Imago Dei in Light of his Doctrine of the Trinity. Ann Arbor: UMI (Dissertation, Southern Methodist University, 1981), p. 157n.
22. Cf., for example, Campbell, Imago Trinitatis; Alexander McElway, “Perichoretic Possibilities in Barth's Doctrine of Male and Female” Princeton Seminary Bulletin. 1986: 231-243;
23. Elizabeth Frykberg, “Karl Barth's Theological Anthropology: An Analogical Critique Regarding Gender Relations,” Studies in Reformed Theology and History. (1993) v. 1, no. 3.;
24. Paul Jewett, Man as Male and Female (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1975);
25. Daniel Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1991), p. 127f.
26. Emil Brunner, “The New Barth: Observations on Karl Barth's Doctrine of Man” Scottish Journal of Theology, v. 4 (1951), p. 130.
27. Paul E. Stroble, The Social Ontology of Karl Barth (San Franscisco: Christian Universities Press, 1994), p. 129.
28. G. C. Berkouwer, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1956), p. 86.
29. Berkouwer, The Image of God (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1962), p. 95.
30. Emil Brunner, Man in Revolt (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1939), 95.
31. Karl Barth, The Humanity of God (Richmond, VA: John Knox, 1960), p. 47.
32. For an analysis of Barth's unacknowledged reliance on Martin Buber's “I-Thou” personalism,
33. see Dieter Becker, Karl Barth und Martin Buber: Denker in dialogischer Nachbarschaft?: Zur Bedeutung Martin Bubers für die Anthropologie Karl Barths (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986).
34. J. Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), p. 142.
35. C. LaCugna, God For Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 1991), p. 254.
36. Stuart McLean, “Creation and Anthropology” in John Thompson, ed., Theology Beyond Christendom: Essays on the Centenary of the Birth of Karl Barth (Allison Park, PA: Pickwick, 1986), totally misses this point in his treatment of the soul-body relation in Barth. His use of the term “dialectical-dialogical” to describe Barth's method certainly breaks down here. To my knowledge, Barth never describes himself as dialogical, and probably would resist the label. While it may work in application to relations like Godman, Christ-church, etc., it does not work with soul-body, which are in no sense dialogical.
37. E.g., Philip J. Rosato, S. J., The Spirit as Lord: The Pneumatology of Karl Barth (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1981). Although Rosato highly values Barth's contributions, he nevertheless concludes that “Barth's ‘second article’ pneumatology seems to leave the Father and the Spirit somewhat inhibited from action, and man decidedly sheltered from responsibility, by the Son” (p. 188).
38. For good recent summaries of Pannenberg's anthropology, with special reference to the imago Dei and the concept of exocentricity, see Reginald Nnamdi, Offenbarung und Geschichte: Zur hermeneutischen Bestimmung der Theologie Wolfhart Pannenbergs (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1993), pp. 141-175;
39. Elisabeth Dieckmann, Personalität Gottes-Personalität des Menschen: Ihre Deutung im theologischen Denken Wolfhart Pannenbergs (Altenberge: Oros, 1995);
40. M. W. Worthing, Foundations and Functions of theology as Universal Science: Theological Method and Apologetic Praxis in Wolfhart Pannenberg and Karl Rahner (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1996), pp. 178-188.
41. Anthropology, p. 531.
42. Anthropology, pp. 84-85.
43. Anthropology, p. 105. In his recent Theologie und Philosophie (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996), Pannenberg places the concept of Exzentrizität, or openness to the world, which was developed by
44. H. Plessner and M. Scheler, into the broader philosophical context of the “Wendung zur Anthropologie,” pp. 337-345. The way in which Pannenberg's whole theological method is shaped by his view of the relation to God (implied by exocentricity) is described in my Sub Ratione Dei: Wolfhart Pannenberg's Theological Anthropology and the Postfoundationalist Task of Theology (forthcoming).
45. In his earlier works, Pannenberg was already placing great emphasis on the idea of “openness to the world” for anthropology. E.g., What is Man? (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1970), p. 3ff,
46. originally published as Was ist der Mensch? (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962).
47. In The Idea of God and Human Freedom (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), he described this idea as “the outer aspect of the freedom, the inner aspect of which is the theme of the problems of subjectivity” (p. 93).
48. Systematic Theology, II, p. 220.
49. Systematic Theology, p. 226.
50. Anthropology, pp. 59-60.
51. Systematic Theology, II, p. 227. Pannenberg's critique of Barth is convincing here, and may be strengthened by the following observations. In III/1, Barth argued that the humanum, “and therefore the true creaturely image of God” is the principle of differentiation and relationship (186). But at the end of § 45.2 (III/2, 276), he says that “there are two determinations of man which do not belong at all to his creatureliness and therefore to his nature.” These are humanity's determination by the inconceivable acts of sin and mercy. For Barth, the basic form of humanity, the image of God, the humanum, is not lost after the fall (III/2, 324); it is “unbroken by sin” (III/2, 43). These statements certainly imply an “image of God” that is somehow ontologically quarantined from current human existence. That is, “sin and mercy” is something that happens externally to who we really are.
52. Anthropology, pp. 91-92.
53. Systematic Theology, I, p. 319.
54. Systematic Theology, p. 323 (my emphasis).
55. Pannenberg, “Person und Subjekt,” reprinted in Grundfragen systematischer Theologie, Band 2 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1980), p. 92-93.
56. Systematic Theology, II, pp. 196-197.
57. Ted Peters, God as Trinity: Relationality and Temporality in Divine Life (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993), p. 139. Unfortunately, Peters misreads Pannenberg on the specific issue of the emergence of the ego. Peters summarizes Pannenberg's position thus: “The ego is not mediated through social relations, whereas the self includes the summary of the picture others have of each of us” (p. 139). But this is G. H. Mead's position, which Pannenberg explicitly criticizes and rejects: “… contrary to Mead's claim, not only the self but also the ego is always mediated to itself through social relations” (Anthropology, p 189). Nevertheless, this does not affect Peters' correct statement that divine personhood does not involve a split between self and ego.
58. Systematic Theology, I, p. 296. In “Die Subjektivität Gottes und die Trinitatslehre,” Pannenberg offered a more extensive critique along these lines, with special attention to the influence of I. A. Dorner on Barth.
59. Systematic Theology, II, p. 230.
60. Systematic Theology, p. 220.
61. The regulative function of exocentric relationality can be seen as operative in Pannenberg's thought beyond the doctrine of the imago Dei as well. E.g., in his proposal for a new metaphysics of the Absolute, he calls for a starting point “that encompasses worldly experience, self -consciousness, and their reciprocal mediation … it is crucial that a newly rethought metaphysics must conceive the Absolute as the source and goal of finite subjectivity.” Metaphysics and the Idea of God, trans P. Clayton (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1990), p. 62.