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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 April 2015
Wolfhart Pannenberg is considered by many to be one of the preeminent living Protestant theologians. Now retired, Pannenberg's active career spanned almost five decades. From 1968 to 1994 he was Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Munich; previously he taught in Mainz and Wuppertal in Germany. Pannenberg has published prolifically, culminating with his three-volume Systematic Theology. Even in retirement, Pannenberg has continued to publish extensively, producing several volumes over the past decade. He has lectured in the U.S. on numerous occasions, and many of his books and articles have appeared in English translation. In this country, Pannenberg is generally associated with the theology of hope, a now-dated movement that was characterized by an emphasis on eschatology and the proleptic anticipation of the future through the events of history. But that association reflects only a limited aspect of Pannenberg's lengthy career, one since eclipsed by the further development of his thinking and concerns.
The breadth of Pannenberg's interests is vast. In addition to his concentration on the classical themes of theology, he has explored other subjects from a theological perspective, among them sociology, science, nature, anthropology, politics and ethics. Over the course of his career, Pannenberg has repeatedly addressed questions of law and jurisprudence, beginning with essays in the early 1960s and continuing up to a publication that appeared in 2004. For the most part, these writings consist of thematic essays, a form Pannenberg has used extensively for a wide variety of subjects. In addition to these essays, portions of Pannenberg's larger works treat law and jurisprudential themes, though as subsidiary topics. His continuing concern with law reflects his view that law is strongly tied to ethics, an area to which he has devoted more attention after he completed his Systematic Theology. Taken together, Pannenberg's writings on law constitute a coherent and reasonably well-articulated theory of law, though one that has unfortunately received limited attention, and no sustained exposition in English. Nonetheless, because of Pannenberg's prominence, and because of his incisive analysis, his work on law deserves attention in this country as well.
1. Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Systematic Theology (Bromiley, Geoffrey W. trans., W.B. Eerdmans Publ'g Co. 1991–1998) (3 vols.)Google Scholar.
2. The University of Munich webpage for Pannenberg currently lists 645 publications through 1998; http://www.st-foe.evtheol.uni-muenchen.de/personen/pannenberg/publikationen/index.html.
3. See the bibliography of Pannenberg's publications, including all English translations, through 2008 that appeared as an appendix to Pannenberg, Wolfhart, An Intellectual Pilgrimage, 54 Kerygma & Dogma 149, 157 (2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4. See generally Braaten, Carl E., Woljhart Pannenberg, in A Handbook of Christian Theologians 639 (Marty, Martin E. & Peerman, Dean G. eds., enlarged ed., Abdingdon Press 1984)Google Scholar.
5. See, e.g., Basic Questions in Theology, Vols. I & II (Kehm, G. trans., Westminster Press 1970–1971Google Scholar; Beiträge Zur Ethik (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2004)Google Scholar; Beiträge Zur Systematischen Theologie, Vols. I–III (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1999–2000)Google Scholar.
6. See, e.g., Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Grundlagen der Ethik (Foundations of Ethics) (2d ed., Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2003)Google Scholar.
7. One of the few analyses of Pannenberg's theology of law is Maihold, Harald, “Recht durch Liebe-Zur Rechtstheologie Wolfhart Pannenbergs aus der Perspektive des Kantischen Rechtsbegriffes” (1994)Google Scholar, a doctoral dissertation. Maihold's study, however, antedates several of Pannenberg's most important writings on the topic, which appeared after 2000.
8. All translations of the German texts of Pannenberg's writings cited are my own.
9. The German term Pannenberg uses is Gegenseitigkeit which connotes both mutuality and reciprocity. Most recent English translations of Pannenberg's work have translated it as “mutuality” rather than “reciprocity,” so I use it as well.
10. He has also devoted attention to religious pluralism; see e.g., his Christliche Rechtsüberzeugungen in einer pluralistischer Gesellschaft (Christian Convictions About Law in a Pluralistic Society), 23 Zeitschrift für Evangelische Ethik 256 (1993)Google Scholar.
11. Pannenberg, Wolfhart, On the Theology of Law, in Ethics 23 (Crim, Keith trans., Westminster Press 1981)Google Scholar. The essays in this volume are drawn from a larger German edition, Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Ethik und Ekklesiologie (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1977)Google Scholar.
12. Theology of Law, supra note 11, at 39.
13. Id.
14. In the seventeenth century, Pannenberg writes: “In the place of religion, human nature became the basis of the social order in public culture.” Grundlagen, supra note 6, at 9.
15. Theology of Law, supra note 11, at 34.
16. Id.
17. Id.
18. Id. at 35.
19. Id.
20. Id.
21. See, e.g., Wong, Kam Ming, From Eschatology to Anthropology: The Development of Pannenberg's Thought over Christian Ethics, 21 Stud. Christian Ethics 382 (2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
22. Pannenberg, Wolfhart, What is Man? (Priebe, Duane A. trans., Fortress Press 1970)Google Scholar; Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Anthropology in Theological Perspective (O'Connell, Matthew J. trans., Westminster Press 1985)Google Scholar.
23. Man, supra note 22, at 1.
24. Anthropology, supra note 22, at 11.
25. Pannenberg develops this theme at length in 2 Systematic Theology, supra note 1, at 1-161.
26. See generally id. at 177-245.
27. Anthropology, supra note 22, at 19-20.
28. Theology of Law, supra note 11, at 34.
29. Id. at 41.
30. Id. at 42.
31. Man, supranote 22, at 14-15.
32. Pannenberg states that he is concerned with fundamental-theological anthropology, rather than dogmatic theology, which “turns its attention directly to the phenomena of human existence as investigated in human biology, psychology, cultural anthropology or sociology and examines the findings of these disciplines with an eye to implications that may be relevant to religion and theology.” Anthropology, supra note 22, at 21.
33. Cf. 2 Pannenberg, Wolfhart, What is Truth?, in Basic Questions in Theology, supra note 5, at 1Google Scholar.
34. Cf. Grenz, Stanley J., Reason for Hope 38–40 (2d ed., Eerdmans Publ'g Co. 2005)Google Scholar.
35. Theology of Law, supra note 11, at 31-32.
36. Id. at 33.
37. Id. at 26-27.
38. Id. at 24.
39. Id. at 24-25.
40. An Intellectual Pilgrimage, supra note 3, at 39.
41. Grundlagen, supra note 6, at 38.
42. Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Recht und Religion, in Beiträge Zur Rechtsanthropologie 48 (Lampe, Ernst-Joachim ed.)Google Scholar, Archiv für Rechts-und Sozialanthropologie 22 (1985)Google Scholar, reprinted in Beiträge Zur Ethik, supra note 5.
43. Lampe, Ernst-Joachim, Rechtsanthropologie Heute (Legal Anthropology Today), 44 Archiv für Rechts-und Sozialanthropologie (Special Edition 44) 222, 232 (1991)Google Scholar, quoted in Herget, James E., Contemporary German Legal Philosophy (Univ. Pa. Press 1996)Google Scholar. See also Brugger, Winfried, Legal Interpretation, Schools of Jurisprudence, and Anthropology: Some Remarks from a German Point of View, 42 Am. J. Comp. L. 395 (1994)Google Scholar.
44. Herget, supra note 43, at 17. Interestingly, one commentator has criticized Pannenberg's theology as being “genetical.” Walsh, Brian, Pannenberg's Eschatological Ontology (AACS 1982)Google Scholar, quoted in The Theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg 50 (Braaten, Carl E. & Clayton, Philip eds., Augsburg Publ'g House 1988)Google Scholar.
45. Cf. Olson, Roger E., Pannenberg's Theological Anthropology, 13 Persp. Religious Stud. 161–69 (1986)Google Scholar.
46. Christliche Rechtsüberzeugungen, supra note 10, at 256.
47. Grundlagen, supra note 6, at 59.
48. Id. at 23.
49. Id.
50. Id.
51. Id. at 26.
52. Id. at 39.
53. Theology of Law, supra note 11, at 45.
54. Id. at 44.
55. H.L.A. Hart's rule of recognition asserts that recognition is an essential element in the formulation of law; namely, in the words of one commentator, “the critical reflective attitude that needs to be adopted by at least the ‘official’ part of the population.” Delacroix, Sylvie, You'd Better be Committed: Legal Norms and Normativity, 54 Am. J. Juris. 117, 129 (2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
56. Oddly, Pannenberg nowhere references Paul Tillich's notion of law as grounded in recognition, though Pannenberg had some personal contact with Tillich in the 1960s and has analyzed Tillich's thought in other contexts. On Tillich's concept of recognition in law, see generally Wolf Reinhard Wrege, Die Rechtstheologie Paul Tillichs (J.C.B. Mohr 1996)Google Scholar.
57. Grundlagen, supra note 6, at 86. See also Theology of Law, supra note 11, at 53.
58. Grundlagen, supra note 6, at 85.
59. Pannenberg, Wolfhart, Chrstliche Recthsbegriindung (The Christian Grounding of Law), in 2 Handbuch der Christlichen Ethik 323-24 (Hertz, Anselm, Korff, Wilhelm, Rendtorff, Trutz & Ringeling, Hermann eds., Herder 1978)Google Scholar.
60. Grundlagen, supra note 6, at 90.
61. Id. at 91.
62. Theology of Law, supra note 11, at 53.
63. Man, supra note 22, at 102.
64. Grundlagen, supra note 6, at 91.
65. Christliche Rechtsbegründung, supra note 59, at 336.
66. Grundlagen, supra note 6, at 20.
67. Id. at 20.
68. Christliche Rechtsbegründung, supra note 59, at 336.
69. Id. at 335.
70. Id.
71. Man, supra note 22, at 99. The English translation of this passage misleadingly translates the German original “Recht”—a singular noun—as “rights,” a plural noun.
72. See generally Christliche Rechtsbegründung, supra note 59, at 335-36.
73. Id. at 336.
74. Id.
75. Grundlagen, supra note 6, at 77.
76. Id at 88.
77. Id. at 89.
78. Id. at 90.
79. Id. at 99.
80. Id. at 58.
81. Other religious scholars have noted the ubiquity of the Golden Rule in various religious/moral traditions. See Küng, Hans, Global Responsibility (Wipf & Stock Publishers 2004)Google Scholar.
82. Grundlagen, supra note 6, at 59.
83. Id.
84. Christliche Rechtsbegründung, supra note 59, at 336. This is considered further infra. See infra note 91 and accompanying text.
85. Id.
86. Man, supra note 22, at 99.
87. Christliche Rechtsbegründung, supra note 59, at 336.
88. Id. at 336.
89. Id. at 335.
90. Id.
91. Id.
92. Grundlagen, supra note 6, at 91.
93. Eagleton, Terry, Reason, Faith and Revolution 10 (Yale Univ. Press 2009)Google Scholar.
94. Christliche Rechtsüberzeugungen, supra note 10, at 256.
95. Grundlagen, supra note 6, at 55.
96. See generally Christliche Rechtsüberzeugung, supra note 10.