A Conversation with Philip Clayton: Homebrewed Christianity 85

@ Tom....that interview is on my computer and I have read it a couple times. I think it is one of the best interviews of Pannenberg I have read (and I have all I can find in English), I believe you sent it to me a long time ago because it is a word file, so if the copy right police won't shoot you post it on your blog! I will tell everyone far and wide!

Tripp, Philip's interview reminded me of an interview I did with Pannenberg in 2001. I think you'll find it interesting, so I'm posting several lengthy questions I asked and Wolfhart answers: 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.

This is simply an OUTSTANDING podcast. I learned some great things about Philip and how he thinks theologically. Thanks!!!