Reading the Bible from the Eyes of Love

German Theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg

Amazon link

How deep has Pannenberg's influence been on American theology? Which particular ideas or themes from his work have been most pervasive to Ameri­can thinkers, and which have encountered the greatest resistance? What implications does his work have beyond explicitly theo­logical contexts--e.g., for philosophy, ethics, environmental concerns, political ac­tion, and the natural sciences? What new forms have his ideas taken as they have been adapted to fit the very different context of American theology?

The authors of the twelve critiques in this vol­ume represent a broad cross section of American thought on religion. The essays cover virtually all of the major areas in which Pannenberg has published. An intro­ductory survey provides a comprehensive overview of the critical literature on Pannenberg from the early 1960s to 1986. Together, the essays represent an ac­curate barometer of the influence Pannenberg has had in America, as well as the sorts of reservations that the English-speaking world brings to his work.

It has now been many years since Pannenberg's first visit to the United States. At that time the discussion with Pannenberg fo­cused on the radically historical character of his proposal for theology, centering around revelation and resurrection. In the meantime, Pannenberg's thought has ex­panded almost encyclopedically into most of the major disciplines studied in a modern university. Without doubt the most comprehensive theologian at work today, his place in the history of twentieth-century theol­ogy is well assured.

Amazon link

Since the 1960's, Wolfhart Pannenberg has been recognized as one of the world's foremost Protestant theologians. Currently writing his magnum opus, a systematic theology in three volumes, Pannenberg intends to develop an ecumenical theology which will carry significance for Christians of all denominations. In this volume Stanley Grenz, who studied under Pannenberg in Munich, brings to the English-speaking audience the fullest available exposition of Pannenberg's developed theology, presented within the context of the debate his ideas have generated.

* * * * * * * *

Reading the Bible from the Eyes of Love

by R.E. Slater

It is wiser - and I think far better - that we learned to speak rightly of God as a God who loves at all the times. All other adjectives of an unloving God are not true of God's personage nor of God's actions. Rather, they mislead us into actions unlike a loving God, thereby justifying our sin, aggression, legalism, and religious zeal.

- re slater

Reading through Pannenberg's interview with Thomas Oord my attention was interrupted by the passage where he said:

"Theology should be based on the Scriptures - but it should be based upon a reading of the Scriptures through historical interpretation...."

I have been echoing this very same sentiment more firmly these past several years that any literal reading of the bible is to do a great disservice to Scripture.

We must always read the bible from:

(1) the (contextual) personal narrative of the acclaimed speaker (Moses, David, Jesus, Paul) which cultural preservation of theology has expressed through those figures, and

(2) including the contemporary existential narratives of those same cultural contexts from those same eras.

As example, Jesus spoke to those around him through their folklores and superstitions even as he himself was also part of the first century culture and could not speak otherwise unless he became what one would deem a 'mystic Christ' speaking of an era-specific future he could not have known based upon his religious education and geographic knowledge.

As such, I would consider all theology found in Scripture to be in its evolutionary stage of theological development - rather than a word-for-word verbatim stage of theological finality as expressed in the teaching of contemporary biblical literalism. 

For instance, whenever a Scriptural literary figure speaks of God as a Warmonger, Avenger, or Austere Judge (such as Moses or Jesus) these interpretive histories are (i) contextualizing the Image of God from within their own cultural biases and theological struggles which were (ii) later written down in Scripture to be extended and reinforced by church teachings (sic, Dante's speculative tome on the fires of Purgatory mixing in Greek and church legends of God's vindicating wrath).

Jesus certainly knew better, since he was God, but he taught those around Him using their own religious teachings while at the same time teaching of a God who loves at all times - if not passionately at all times, accounting therefore for God's anger, and angry reactions, to those priests and scribes claiming to be speaking, or acting, for God.

I also find it interesting that the Gospel of John and 1 John predominantly speak to a God of Love yet in the smaller Johannine tracts of 2, 3 John God is viewed as a Warrior God. Here are two Images of God - one loving and willing to sacrifice His life and the other returning from heaven to forcefully remove sin and ungodliness, hate and evil, from His creation.

How much of God might we infer from these literary scripts which are culturally bound in religious language and which are not? Further, they contribute to the pagan idea that God is divinely dipolar? Equally as loving as God is Avenging.

• How then can divine love be divinely unloving?

• How can divine vengeance be holy and righteous?

• Or the Christian Hell justified by a loving God?

I submit that humanity through the ages has it's image of God wrong and has leaned into the direction of fear and idolatry rather than into the more socially helpful and unifying idea of God as a God of love and redemption.

To be consistent, how then did the prophets, or Jesus, or the Apostles speak of God? Often in those same earthly Images of God embedded in the cultures they had inherited. And yet, those earlier beliefs about God are incongruous with a "GOD OF LOVE" we know today through Jesus. Though it seems right to carry over the judge (ala Moses) or war images (ala the prophets) of GOD, the God of Jesus is neither a Warmonger, Vindicator, or Wrathful Judge, though he is claimed to be in the bible and by the church. Images based in cultural fear and religious idolatry.

God is now known as the Prince of Peace, a Healer of the Nations, the Great High Priest who brings atoning salvation to the earth. God is a God of Love who is none of those OT images. A God whom Jesus pictures as always moved by love in all He does.

Whereas the church now should declare the end of God's wrath and judgment experienced by humanity and creation which comes as a natural result of humanity not loving one another (or even respecting nature). This God of wrath and judgment comes from the consequences of human (or creaturely) sin and evil... of which God has nothing to do with these things: "God is not a God of sin and evil."

More specifically, the consequences for not loving one another disspells it's energy into sinful thoughts and evil actions.  The very same things Christ warned us about many times over with prophetic heat and vigor. Yet Creedal Christianity AND the Traditions of the Church teach of a God of violence using as their dogma violent church rhetoric. This is not the God of redemption but a graven god made with earthly hands and mouldering temperment.

As conclusion, when reading the bible it must be read redactively as much as grammatically, historically, and contextually. There is no place for a literal reading of the bible unless we wish to continue in the misdirection and false teachings of who God is and what God expects. Jesus said to "love God and love your neighbor even as God loves you."

Though Jesus used other images of God this specific image of a God of love seems more consistent with God's purposes of creating, embracing, directing, and infilling creation. In all ways and by all deeds God loves and loves always. And with this line of thought Process Theology agrees. God is a God of Love and worthy to be worshipped, obeyed, and exampled through our lives, words, deeds, and activities. Amen.

R.E. Slater

February 20, 2022

Wolfhart Pannenberg's fuller quote in his interview with Thomas Oord:

"Now to von Rad. One of the weaknesses of Karl Barth was that Barth didn't have a real appreciation of Biblical exegesis, especially critical exegesis. Of course, he used the scripture quite a bit. But he had a very personal way of interpreting the Bible. I found by involving myself in historical critical exegesis of biblical writings that this wouldn't do. Theology should be based on the scriptures, of course, but it should be based upon a reading of the scriptures through historical interpretation. After all, the scriptures are historical documents, notwithstanding their being the word of God. Even that has to be settled upon their content as historical documents.

"I was most impressed by Gerhard von Rad's approach, because he interprets the scriptures, not only as a historian, but as a theologian. He was able to speak of the stories of the Old Testament as if they were about real life -- much more real than the secular life that we experience otherwise. The Old Testament has become an experience of reality for me through the teachings of Gerhard von Rad. His thesis, that God is acting with Israel and with all humanity in history, and that history is constituted by the acts of God, has influenced me more than any other thing that I learned as a student." - Wolfhart Pannenberg