Confessions of a Trinitarian evolutionist: Thomas Jay Oord's interview of Wolfhart Pannenberg 
Part Two.
St. Paul, Minnesota, March 9, 2001
Metanexus: Views 2001.21.09. 3742 words.

As Wolfhart Pannenberg points out in this second part of the interview, because "God is the creator of everything and will be the
redeemer of everything, theology has to be concerned with everything." And, as a theologian, Pannenberg certainly is interested
in everything: from physics, eschatology, and John Polkinghorne to deconstruction, Nietzsche, and Richard Rorty. Also included in the
discussion is a neat little observation about human cloning and a wonderful, and almost antiphonal, view of the relation between
science and theology.

And, of course, what it means to be a Trinitarian evolutionist is finally revealed!

--Stacey E. Ake

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Part Two
Thomas Jay Oord's interview of Wolfhart Pannenberg
St. Paul, Minnesota, March 9, 2001

Oord: You have long sought to bring theology and science into a mutually illuminating conversation. How would you assess the current
state of that conversation?

Pannenberg: I was involved in these conversations since the 50's and 60's in Germany. At that time, there was an important center of
such a conversation with some of the leading German physicists, like Heisenberg and von Weiszacker, were involved.
Since that time, the center of these conversations has moved to this country. America, with centers of dialogue between science
and theology at Berkeley, Chicago, Princeton, and also in other places, is now the center of the whole movement that brings science
and religion, but especially science and Christian theology, closer together.

Oord: Your eschatological vision of the God of the Future has influenced several leaders in the science and religion dialogue.
Does this surprise you? Or is this something that you would expect?

Pannenberg: When you write something, especially if you write something that is not common knowledge and opinion before you publish
it, you can never expect that people will believe it! So, to that extent I am rather surprised that I didn't receive rejection only but
received some positive response.

Oord: What do you view as the assets and liabilities of John Polkinghorne's theology of science?

Pannenberg: I think John Polkinghorne is a noted physicist and a remarkable person. His turning, as a physicist, to theology, not
only in terms of personal interest but becoming a priest of the Anglican church, is remarkable. He is very serious in his
determination to bring science and theology together. The problem with Polkinghorne is that he has no philosophical
education. He admits that. It is difficult to do theology without philosophy. In all the history of Christian theology, the close
cooperation between philosophy and theology -- though there were often tensions between the two -- has been essential. Without that,
Christian theology could never have made its universal claims concerning God. Justifying these universal claims should not start
with science, as it sometimes does in our day. Justifying universal claims started with philosophy, and it continues with philosophy.
The dialogue between science and theology is possible only on the basis of philosophy. Therefore, it is regrettable that John
Polkinghorne, for all his commitment to the dialogue between theology and science, has no appropriate philosophical education.

Oord: Your theology has been described as interdisciplinary. Do you find this description accurate?

Pannenberg: Because God is the creator of everything and will be the redeemer of everything, theology has to be concerned with
everything. This doesn't make theology interdisciplinary in a superficial sense. It is interdisciplinary because theology is
concerned with only one thing, and that is God.

Oord: Do recent developments in biology, especially the prospect of human cloning, pose new challenges to a Christian understanding of
the human person as laid out, of example, in your Anthropology in Theological Perspective?

Pannenberg: There are serious reasons against allowing the cloning of human beings. Nevertheless, it is a question of limited
importance, because the identity of the human person is constituted by the unique life history of each individual person, starting only
from his or her birth. This would not change even by the cloning of human beings.
We have the example of identical twins who have the same genetic constitution. But even those persons have different life
experiences. They are different individuals because of their different life history. This must also apply to individuals that
were produced through cloning. Therefore, the significance of cloning is limited concerning the concept of the human person. There
would still be a uniqueness of each human person with regard to the life history that constitutes this or another person's identity.

Oord: Is there any analogy between (1) the divine field of relations in Trinity and (2) various physical fields found in natural science,
for example, the electromagnetic field?

Pannenberg: There is an analogy, certainly, but no identity. I always emphasize this. There are some anxieties, expressed by
physicists as well as theologians, that I would confound physics and theology in applying the field concept to theology by appropriating
field theory for the language of theology. But I am not identifying the divine reality as a field concept with the fields as described by
physics. That would amount to idolatry.
God as a Creator is working in His creation through His creatures. This doesn't distract from the immediacy of the
relationship between the Creator and His creatures. God always used creatures to bring about other things.
Think of the function of the earth in the first part of Genesis. The earth is addressed by God to assist in His act of
creation. First, the earth is addressed to bring about vegetation. So we may wonder, "How can the earth, an inorganic reality, bring
about an organic reality, vegetation, and then bring about the self organization of organisms from inorganic materials?" Yet, this is
the Christian creation story.
The second address of the earth is even bolder than that! God addresses the earth to bring about animals. And the text means
higher animals. Such boldness does not really characterize even Darwin's theory of evolution. Darwin wouldn't have dreamed to have
higher animals spring immediately from the earth, from inorganic matter. Darwin is much more moderate than that. In criticizing the
doctrine of evolution, our creationist friends among Christian theologians should read their Bibles more closely.

Oord: Would you call yourself a theistic evolutionist?

Pannenberg: I would call myself a Trinitarian evolutionist.

Oord: Toward what direction would you like to see the science and religion dialogue go?

Pannenberg: Ernan McMullin, the philosopher from Notre Dame, whom I highly regard for his contribution to the science and theology
dialogue, said that we should look for consonance, not for mutual support, but for consonance. Consonance also means support,
because, if there were no consonance with the description of the reality of our world, then our faith in creation would become empty.
That would endanger our faith in God. Our faith in God is essentially founded in the notion that He is the creator of
everything, and that He has power over everything. God would not have this power if He were not the creator of everything.
The consonance between science and theology, in some way, also supports the Christian affirmations -- but not in the sense that
theology should be modeled after scientific findings, efforts, and so on. Theology moves on its own level of method. This is what
McMullin had in mind, and I am in complete agreement with him here. I would hope that there would be increasing consonance between
science and theology.
For many scientists, there is already too much consonance because of the Big Bang cosmology of science. Many scientists of a
secularist or atheist persuasion have felt that this is too close to theology, and that they should develop alternative theories. If the
world had a beginning that was almost like creation, they think that's terrible. But the Big Bang theory is a standard theory of
scientific cosmology, and here there is a degree of consonance. As McMullin said, the Big Bang theory doesn't prove the existence of God
as a creator. In that sense, it doesn't support theology. But it does describe the universe in such a way that theologians should
expect from science if there is a Creator. I think that's a good example.
The Creator is always interfering with the process of the world, however, and this has to be clarified to a greater degree than
it has been generally. I used to discuss this under the title of the contingency of events as a medium of God's actions in the world. We
have to reach more agreement on this in the dialogue between theology and science.
And there is the question of the future of the universe, which is considered quite differently in theology than in science. A
degree of exception to this difference is found in the cosmology of my friend, Frank Tippler, from New Orleans. Tippler is not readily
accepted by most of his scientist colleagues, and his views are not completely acceptable to the theologian either. But I admire his
daring proposition concerning the future of the universe as a beginning of the dialogue between scientists and theologians about
the future of the universe. This is a most difficult area, but we can hope that there will be more progress in the future.

Oord: Figuring prominently in your earlier work is the statement that the future possesses an ontological priority, and, in a limited
but important sense, God does not yet exist. In your later years, your theology remains concerned with the future, but you seem to
express more interest in what it means for God to be present here and now. Would you still say with the same energy what you once said,
namely, that there is an ontological priority of the future, and that, in a limited but important sense, God does not yet exist?

Pannenberg: I always affirm that God does exist at present as He did in eternity. If God, in the definitive sense, did not yet exist,
then how could He be the eternal God? The ontological priority of the future means two things.
First of all, events occur contingently. This is what we have to learn from quantum physics. The basic information of quantum physics
is the contingency of all events. This also applies on a macrophysical level and has now become more commonly accepted by the
development of chaos theory. All processes in history, which are basically irreversible, are characterized by contingency.
Contingency is not opposed to the application of natural law. The sequence of contingent events shows degrees of uniformity. This
uniformity is the object of the description of nature by natural laws. So descriptions of natural laws and the basic contingency of
natural events are not opposed to each other.
The laws themselves - all the laws of mathematical formulas having application in nature -- emerge from the irreversible process
of the universe. Sometimes physicists believe the laws of nature to be eternal. This belief is not as prevalent, but some still hold to
it. The source of contingency is not the past, that's the very notion of contingency. Contingent events can form an unknown future
to encounter.
Therefore, the ontological priority of the future means, in the first place, that the future is a source of contingent events.
You need this idea if you do not isolate the particular contingent events. If you look at the fact that all new contingent events occur
in the perspective of the wholeness of the universe, the future is a source of contingency.
The future is also the source of possible completion of the identity of creatures. This is assisted by the efficacy of natural
laws. But natural laws do not exhaust this issue, because reality is basically historical. There is an open future. So the achievement
of wholeness -- the final achievement of the identity of creatures -- is dependent on the future. As Plotinus said, it is the wholeness of
life that God enjoys in His eternity that is longed for by creatures. They strive for their wholeness, for their identity.
I referred to the theological side of this issue when I said that, when God created the world, He took a risk. He could not be
the eternal God and Creator without His kingdom being established in this world. Therefore, we say that, in the eschatological future, it
will be established that the God in whom we believe really is the King of the universe and the eternal God and Creator of the world.
Because God looks at His creation from the point of view of its final fulfillment, this is already settled. But, from the perspective of
the world, this is not settled.

Oord: How does the future affect the present determinatively? And, is that future already determined?

Pannenberg: We have to be very careful in discussing this issue. Determinism, as it has been discussed in philosophy and theology in
past centuries, is concerned with determination from the past by some past state of affairs or by some past decisions that anticipate the
future and determine it. If some past decisions or some past conditions in the development of the universe would completely
determine the further process of the universe, we would have a completely deterministic system of nature.
The determination or, let's say, the influence of the future in the course of the history is of a different kind. It doesn't make
sense to talk about determinism in the way that we talk about determinism of the influence of past influences and conditions that
will come later.
Concerning the question whether the future is already determinate, this is certainly true with regard to God's eternity.
But it is true with regard to the final future of this world, because the eternal God is the final future of this world. One should not
say that the future is already determinate at some point at the beginning of the process of the world, because that would do away
with the concept of eternity.
Some people envision the Creator standing at the beginning of the world and making plans for the future of the world's history.
That is a conception that forgets about the eternity of God. It looks upon God as if He were a human being looking ahead to a future
that is different from Himself and making plans for influencing that future. God has no need of doing that, because He is eternal.

Oord: One scholar understands your future God as part of an Hegelian metaphysics, in which all is ultimately enveloped in God.
Is this characterization accurate?

Pannenberg: In some areas of discussion, and maybe especially in this country, there is a lot of mythology concerning Hegel. It is
almost comparable to the mythology concerning Christianity in a secularized world: the less you know about it, the more your
prejudices have free rein.
There is no Future God in Hegel. The future was not an important part of Hegel's philosophy, and that is one of the serious
limitations of Hegel's thought. When I talk about God as the power of the future, that is certainly not Hegelian influence on my thought!

Oord: Some have used your eschatological vision to support doctrines of divine predestination. Do you think this use is
warranted?

Pannenberg: The problem with predestination in the history of Christian thought is that people tend, again and again, to look upon
God and His relation to the world as if He is the Creator who would stand at the beginning and look ahead to a future that is distant for
Him. Predestination also tends to become deterministic.
But if we take into consideration God's eternity -- that He is the Lord of the future -- then He relates to the process of the
universe in one moment. When Paul speaks of predestination in Romans 8, the meaning is that our Christian calling is rooted in eternity,
in the eternal God. He doesn't mean this kind of determinism from the beginning of the world.
There is predestination in the sense that God's relation, and also the Christian calling for each one of us, is rooted in God's
eternity. This is an essential affirmation of the Christian faith. But it need not be understood and should not be understood in a
deterministic way, as if, from the beginnings of the process of the universe, everything has been determined by God.

Oord: In your book, Theology and the Kingdom of God, you allude to the fact that, in moment by moment decisions, creatures cooperate
with or resist the coming kingdom. How can the present moment be the appearance of the future as the incoming kingdom of God, and yet each
moment also be constituted by each creature's free decision?

Pannenberg: Human beings certainly have choices. This is the basic characteristic of the place of human beings in the world, and
choice is what distinguishes human beings from other creatures. We need not respond immediately to the influences we get from the
outside or to what our senses tell us about the outside world. We can delay our reaction. We can deliberate and, then, act according to
our deliberation. That is what it means to make choices. 
The Bible does not consider that as freedom. There is no natural freedom, and making choices does not yet guarantee our
freedom. In John 8, we have this conversation between Jesus and his Jewish partners who are proud of being free-born and not slaves.
Jesus tells them, "If you sin, you are a slave. You will be free when the Son makes you free." This is very important.
Christian proclamation should have criticized the Western ideology of freedom by telling the public that having choices doesn't
mean freedom. The alcohol-addicted person or the drug-addicted person is also making choices. The problem is that he or she always
makes the same choice -- to take the drug or drink the bottle -- again and again. Having choices doesn't yet guarantee freedom.
But, Nietzsche said (and no one is suspicious that he is prejudiced in favor of Christianity) when he talked about the
production of his book, Also Spake Zarathustra, that he wrote it under the pressure of inspiration. He said that a human being is
free in inspiration. I think he is correct. Inspiration and freedom, i.e., inspiration as the spirit of God and freedom, do not
contradict each other. To the contrary, we are freer the more we are lifted beyond ourselves by divine inspiration. We still have choices
-- we have a broader range of choices -- but we also choose the right thing.

Oord: Some claim that your place in history will be greatly affected by whether or not deconstructive postmodernism wins the day. Would
you agree? And, how would you characterize your conceptual relationship to deconstructive postmodernism?

Pannenberg: I'm not a particular friend of the deconstructionism. I don't think that is a good way of philosophy. I am confident that
people will find out, sooner or later, that deconstructionism has been a fad that has had its time. But that the time will be limited.
There are some truths to deconstructionism postmodernism. Reality is not as rational as some of the enlightenment thinkers
thought it was.
The great philosopher John Locke was not of this persuasion though, because he had a deep respect for the mysterious character of
all reality, not only religion but also the world of nature. Reality is always surpassing our knowledge and our understanding of it. If
the enlightenment had always followed this concept of reason, postmodernism wouldn't have been necessary. The overestimation of
the rationalist argument, especially in science, brought about postmodernism. In this way, postmodernism has its element of truth.
But we should not give up on reason. The Pope has published a beautiful encyclical on faith and reason. He emphasized that the
Christian faith should continue to stick to the alliance of faith and reason that has been essential for Christian truth claims and for
Christian mission since the first centuries. We should understand reason in the sense of John Locke, not necessarily in the sense of
his empiricist philosophy, but in the sense of his basic intuition that reality surpasses our rational concepts. If we do not, progress
in science will be impossible. We hope for progress in science in the next century and maybe even in the century after this one. In
that sense, I think we should continue to have high regard for reason. It is rational to acknowledge the fact that reality is
greater than what we already know of it.

Oord: As you look to the future, what trends in contemporary philosophy do you see as most promising, and what trends do you find
to be most threatening?

Pannenberg: Well, some things that are called "philosophy," I see as entertainment. For instance, the philosophy of Richard Rorty.
But there is also serious philosophy in this country. Take, for instance, the philosophy of Nicholas Rescher. I only mention these
as examples.
I hope that philosophy will not be identified exclusively with language analysis, as it has been in past decades in this
country. I hope that philosophy will pick up again the great tradition of philosophical thought and the history of metaphysics. I
hope that philosophy will develop new approaches to these subjects of philosophical reflection.

Oord: What is your greatest concern for the church as it moves into the next 25 years?

Pannenberg: My greatest concern for the church is that it continue to preach the Gospel and not adapt to secular standards and
concerns. Some churches and many church ministers think they have to adapt to the secular concerns of people in order to reach them. I
think that the opposite is true. If people were to hear in church only what they also get on television and read in the papers, there
would be no need for going to church.
The church has to proclaim a different thing: the hope for eternal life. It must proclaim participation with the crucified
Christ through baptism by faith. My concern for the church is that it sticks to that message rather than adapting, lowering, or watering
it down by adapting it to secular concerns. It requires some strength to oppose the spirit of the culture. My concern for the
church, my hope for the church, is that it will receive constantly that strength for opposing the culture by this message.

--
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Stacey E. Ake, Ph.D., Ph.D.
Metanexus: The Online Forum for Religion & Science
P.O. Box 490
Unionville, PA 19375

cell: 215.601.0036
fax: 610.486.6897
email: sake@pc4rs.org
url: http://www.meta-lists.net

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