Reconstructing Science and Theology in Postmodernity

Jacqui Stewart

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN:
  9781138738393
• eBook ISBN:
  9781351732239
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This title was first published in 2000:  The author examines and critiques Pannenberg's elaboration of hermeneutics and evaluates his use of the sciences against the background of modernity. The study does not present Pannenberg's theory in itself, rather, it is confined to a critical assessment of his engagement with the sciences.

Chapter One

Introduction

Wolfhart Pannenberg has made a significant attempt to relate science to theology in the context of a hermeneutical epistemology. This book presents a critique of that enterprise by bringing it into conversation with relevant voices in postmodernity. The definition of what is modem and what is postmodern is problematic. Different authorities favour different perspectives; the view from the creative arts is not the same as the historian or philosopher’s view.¹ The problems centre on the perceived failure of Enlightenment rationality to deliver its promised improvement in the human condition. Some authors feel that the Enlightenment project has failed – for example, Baudrillard – others that it continues in a changed form, for example, Bauman. There are some significant features which appear to be frequently associated with postmodernity, and might be diagnostic for it. They include a hostility to positivist criteria for knowledge, a concentration on semiotics and the philosophical problems of language, an abandonment of claims to overarching frameworks of knowledge or ‘metanarratives’ and a suspicion of hidden ideology in claims to knowledge. But there can be disagreement within a subject area. For example, in social theory, James Beckford (1992:19) includes disjunction, irony and playfulness, does not stress suspicion, and tends to relativisation, whereas Zygmunt Bauman (1993:10-15) sees the characteristic of postmodernity as the deconstruction of ideology and the revealing of the ethical as fundamental to human being.² Even a single author may not be definitively characterised; this is particularly true of Hans-Georg Gadamer,³ whose work will play a significant part in this book. The difficulties and rewards of establishing the relation between religious discourses and those of postmodernism are revealed in work such as that of Anthony Thiselton or Roger Lundin.⁴

In the context of discussions about science and Christian theology⁵ there seem to be two aspects of the modem/postmodern debate that are particularly relevant. The first is an epistemological question: how is the status of scientific knowledge to be secured, if the philosophical assumptions of the Enlightenment are no longer assumed to be inviolable? The second aspect is the problem of ideology and hidden values. Until recently, science was widely thought to be value free. The awful consequences of some science, such as nuclear physics, and the perceived potential of other science, such as genetically modified foods, has led to a widespread rethinking of the relation between social values and science.⁶

There are few established authors who can relate science and theology in a context that acknowledges these postmodern issues. The theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg is certainly one of them. His theology combines a concern for the rational evaluation of knowledge with a conception of meaning and value as anticipatory of the ultimate revelation of all truth at the eschaton. He has a highly developed epistemology in the tradition of continental hermeneutics, and is accepted as a significant contemporary systematic theologian. Pannenberg can be distinguished from other major theologians of the second half of the twentieth century by the intellectual seriousness with which he treats the natural and social sciences. This, together with his recognition of the importance of the historical and hermeneutic dimension in knowledge, makes his contribution to theology one whose significance is widely acknowledged. This book is in no sense intended to be an introduction to Pannenberg’s overall theology, but is concerned with the specific issues raised by his use of the sciences. Only brief reference will be made, therefore, to general evaluations of his work.⁷

Pannenberg’s theology – an overview

Pannenberg belongs to the generation of German theologians that inherited the consequences of World War II, and this is important for characterising his theology. He studied under the philosophers Nicolai Hartmann and Karl Jaspers, and completed a doctoral dissertation in 1953 with the theologian Edmund Schlink. He is a contemporary of Jurgen Moltmann, and is responding to the same theological situation, but in a very different way. By the end of the war, the failure of German Protestant theology to meet the challenges posed by Nazism meant that theology had to make a new start. Pannenberg, like others, is part of that new enterprise. He wishes to retrieve and rehabilitate the theological past, and his entire theological enterprise is marked by the detailed excavation and reconstruction of traditional theological authorities. However, his concern with the question of truth can be understood in the context of a strong desire not to repeat the errors of the past. And his preoccupation with anthropology can be also be seen against this background. The passing of a state sponsored inhumanity leaves the theologian with the task of reconstructing a true vision of humanity.⁸

Pannenberg’s development has been marked by a series of notable publications, each of which stresses some facet of his theology, but contains or implies its other features, so that he is remarkably consistent. In Revelation as History (1979)⁹ and many of the essays in Basic Questions in Theology (1983a, 1983b) he presented his understanding of all knowledge, including theological knowledge, as essentially historical. His theology is founded on the perception of revelation itself as history, as presented in his book of that name. God is indirectly revealed in his concrete dealings with humans in history (history being understood in the hermeneutical sense). He characterises knowledge as understanding: the provision of a necessarily historical interpretation in a historical context. This is associated with a coherence, rather than a correspondence, view of truth, which is always seen against the horizon of the future, and is therefore incomplete. His understanding of history is very specific, being the summation of all events that will ultimately be revealed at the end of time, and which is yet proleptically revealed in Jesus Christ. The historicity of both the Jewish people and the event of Jesus Christ – his life, death and resurrection – are of paramount importance for Pannenberg. Hence his book Jesus – God and Man (1968) is a Christology ‘from below’, but his understanding of what it is to work ‘from below’ is informed by an orientation to the eschatological future being brought about by God. He argues that the irruption of God into human history in Jesus makes concrete a proleptic, anticipatory manifestation of the end of human history. This is perceivable and accessible to any ordinarily rational human, precisely because it is history as Pannenberg understands it. Pannenberg gives a detailed account of this appropriation of the philosophy of hermeneutics, particularly that of Gadamer, in Theology and the Philosophy of Science (1976). Gadamer conceives understanding as a process open to the horizon of a future yet to come. The parallels between this and Pannenberg’s concept of anticipation are evident. Pannenberg differs from Gadamer in that he wishes to retain an objective dimension to language, and he excludes action from his account of knowledge. In his attack on positivism, we can also see another aspect of Pannenberg’s postmodern credentials. Given that Pannenberg sees knowledge as hermeneutically and historically mediated, the question of what constitutes the humanity making this history is obviously significant for him. He summarised philosophical, scientific and historical contributions to this question in Anthropology in Theological Perspective (1985). This was not an attempt to found theological anthropology on secular discourses; rather, it is a demonstration of the coherence of secular knowledge with a view of humanity which is primarily theologically given. It includes not only accounts of biology and the behavioural sciences, but also a serious dialogue with post-Heideggerian philosophy as it accounts for human identity. For Pannenberg, the ultimate significance of humanity is revealed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ as a destiny toward fellowship with God. The resurrection of Jesus is the forerunner, both present and to come, of the fulfilment of all creation with and in God. This he set out in Jesus – God and Man, and it lies behind the theological agenda of Anthropology in Theological Perspective.

Most recently, he has published a three volume Systematic Theology (1991, 1994, 1998) which presents the logical connections between the different major presentations of his theology. It also contains modifications and revisions of what has gone before, and demonstrates some development. Pannenberg has, of course, written a great deal more than the works I have listed, including a number of short essays on issues relating more to the physical sciences, (collected in Towards a Theology of Nature (1993)).¹⁰ His work has usually been reviewed positively in the English speaking world; for example, the account by Grenz (1990) is fairly typical.

In both the philosophical and the theological foundations on which Pannenberg builds, there seem to me to be three key areas which may be problematic. The first is the role of reciprocity and mutual transformation, both in understanding and human relationality, which Pannenberg seems to neglect. The second is the relation between action and knowledge. Is Pannenberg epistemologically correct and morally right to exclude action from knowledge? The third is the role of human community in the accumulation of knowledge; has Pannenberg taken it into consideration sufficiently? There are a number of intersecting issues here. If reciprocal conversation is truly the mode of knowing, then the resulting transformation must imply different consequent action. Conversations take place in and may constitute communities, but how does the community affect the conversation? Such problems form part of the debate about postmodernity, and Pannenberg’s contribution to this debate must be assessed.

Pannenberg and the sciences

For Pannenberg, theology is the basis from which all other knowledge can be evaluated, and to which it must conform, in order to protect the Christian from error. He does not regard science as having any prior truth claim over theology. However, science and theology must certainly exist in relation for Pannenberg. He views all knowledge from the perspective of a world created by God in which all knowledge must be ultimately congruent, since it is all about the same act of creation. This is an easier position than some from which to enter the discussion about science and theology. For instance, Barth’s acute awareness of human limitations in respect to reason has the consequence that he finds it very difficult to give a constructive place to science as a human activity. On the other hand, it may turn out, and I shall claim that it does, that Pannenberg is over optimistic about the achievements of human rationality in science.

Pannenberg deals with the biological and the human sciences in detail. He does not confine himself to the questions about the origins of the universe and astronomy, or determinism and fundamental physics, which are typical of the general science and theology literature in which physics predominates. He confronts the major issue of what the sciences tell us about humanity itself. This could have far reaching consequences for theology, and yet is often neglected in accounts of science and theology.

The context in contemporary theology

Twentieth century theology has developed in so many directions and responded to the crisis in modernity in so many ways, that a complete survey is impracticable. The major theologians, for example, Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmann, Hans Küng, Eberhard Jungel, Jurgen Moltmann, Karl Rahner, Edward Schillebeeckx, and in the USA, George Lindbeck, David Tracy, Stanley Hauerwas and Schubert Ogden certainly show awareness of the difficulties of Enlightenment epistemology. The frequent engagement of theologians with the work of thinkers such as Husserl, Heidegger, Habermas, Ricoeur, Gadamer, Levinas, Wittgenstein and Derrida demonstrates the concern with these issues that is present in contemporary theology.¹¹ Pannenberg belongs to this community of thinkers. It is noticeable that apart from Pannenberg, there has been little direct discussion of science by mainstream theologians in the last seventy years. For instance, in a survey of contemporary theologians by David Ford (1997) only four out of forty have ever dealt with science specifically, and in the same survey he devotes one chapter to science and theology out of thirty five on other theological matters. One reason for this may have been the growing awareness that even the natural sciences could not maintain a positivist or modernist epistemology, and that their intellectual challenge to theology was less urgent as a result. In acknowledgement of the historically conditioned nature of knowledge, Hans Küng and David Tracy promoted a joint approach to this from Continental Europe and the USA. This resulted in the volume Paradigm Change in Theology (1989). Küng’s introductory paper spoke of the changes in the understanding of knowledge and the philosophy of epistemology:

Hence, in the past fifty years the discussion has moved from an abstract, positivistic logic and linguistic analysis through innumerable interim corrections to taking history, the community of inquiry, and the human subject, seriously again. (1989:7)

The various contributors discussed the possible directions theology itself could or should take in the light of this, and different approaches were suggested. All of these arose from within the varied context of the Christian tradition.¹² The critique of positivist epistemology in science offered by T.S. Kuhn was cited by many contributors. There was a contribution from the historian of science, Stephen Toulmin, explicitly warning theologians not to tie their chariots too closely to the philosophy of science horse, since it was also subject to historical change.¹³ This symposium seems to have been the only recent time at which science has played an important role on the international theological agenda.

Regrettably, Pannenberg did not participate in this symposium, although his use of hermeneutics in relating science and theology is noted by a contributor.¹⁴ Nevertheless, he holds a place unique in contemporary Western theology, by virtue of the sophistication and scope of his systematic theology and his sustained interest in the sciences.

Science and faith

Despite the limited input from theologians as such, there does exist a recognisable literature in science and religion. This seems to originate in the desire of scientists to give expression to religious faith – usually Christianity – as it relates to their science. Much of this may be related back to the first book published by Ian Barbour in the USA – Issues in Science and Religion (published in 1966). His continued writings and his later book Religion in an Age of Science (1986) have been central to the continuing interest in this area. The significant names include in the UK, Arthur Peacocke and John Polkinghome; in the USA, Ralph Wendell Burhoe, Ian Barbour, Phil Hefher and Bob Russell. Additionally, there are also a number of Christian philosophers who are concerned with the relation between religion and science, such as Phil Clayton and Nancy Murphy in the USA. It is worthy of note that Nancy Murphy (1990) has responded to Pannenberg’s work by envisaging it as a research project in the terms of Lakatos. This will be discussed in Chapter Six. In general, the understanding of science in the science and religion literature appears somewhat insulated from much of contemporary philosophy and sociology of science. There are allusions to Popper or the modification of Popper by Lakatos, sometimes to Polanyi. There appears to have been no serious engagement with the developments in philosophy of science apart from this. The difficulties and questions such as the problems of progress, the relation of explanation to events, confirmation and evidence, and the question of the historical conditioning of evaluative standards are not often considered.¹⁵ The findings of sociology of science are also often overlooked,¹⁶ and issues relating to the politics and social workings of science are rarely dealt with.

The view of Christian theology represented in the science and religion literature is variable. For example, Barbour and Peacocke are both influenced by process theology, while Polkinghorne presents a conservative account of mainstream Anglican theology. The discussion in Küng and Tracy seems to have had little effect at all on the direction of this field, which has been characterised by just such a dependence on certain kinds of philosophy of science, particularly the Popperian tradition, as Toulmin warned against.

Even very recent publications follow this pattern. A large number of books on science have appeared in the last ten years, having remarkably similar themes and sources.¹⁷ An exception is a recent collection of essays edited by Niels Henrik Gregersen and J. Wentzel Van Huysteen, which sets out to address the challenge of relating theology and science in the present pluralist context.¹⁸ Some cognisance of recent philosophy of science is made in this. However, the essays concentrate on epistemological issues which are defined from a formalist methodological standpoint, even if this is one the authors wish to reject. Postmodern epistemologies such as those of MacIntyre, Habermas, Gadamer, Derrida, Ricoeur, Levinas are not mentioned or brought into play. There is only a limited involvement of theology ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Knowledge in Science and Theology
• 3 Pannenberg and Biology
• 4 Science and the Person
• 5 Social Science in Pannenberg’s Perspective
• 6 Rationality and Transformation
• Bibliography
• Index