Eberhard
Jüngel and Wolfhart Pannenberg as Interpreters of the Doctrine of Justification
Rev. Dr. Tomi Karttunen
The Lutheran-Roman Catholic Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JDDJ), signed in 1999, remains one of the most significant ecumenical achievements. Furthermore, it paves the way towards the ecumenical celebration of 500 years of Reformation in 2017. However, the declaration awakened strong criticism, especially during the preparation and publication phase, and has to some extent continued to do so since that time.1 Professor (em.) Eberhard Jüngel, a United Church (Reformed-Lutheran) theologian, started wide discussion among German university theologians which led to a critical statement, signed by 160 German professors. Surprisingly enough, Jüngel himself did not, in the end, sign the statement but pointed out that JDDJ gives an opportunity to move beyond doctrinal judgments to continue the work with these questions.2
I would like to investigate Jüngel’s (b. 1934) understanding of the doctrine of justification and to ask why he arrived at a critical position whereas another noteworthy German systematic theologian, internationally even more famous than Jüngel, the Lutheran Wolfhart Pannenberg (b. 1928) considered the criticism too sharp and saw in it echoes of the old controversy theology model of building Protestant identity in a negative way, through distancing itself from Rome. According to Pannenberg, the criticism did not do justice to the text of JDDJ. He asks: “How can anyone who has read the Joint Declaration make such ungrounded claims?”3
In order to uncover the points of departure in the thought of these theologians, in addition to their confessional backgrounds, let us first analyze the arguments in their theologies of justification and compare their positions before drawing conclusions regarding the broader theological and ecumenical implications of their positions. The sources used for Jüngel’s thought are his Das Evangelium von der Rechtfertigung des Gottlosen als Zentrum des christlichen Glaubens (1999) and his early work, Gottes Sein ist im Werden (1965). The latter will serve as a help in understanding the wider perspective of his systematic theological orientation. On Pannenberg’s
1 Saarinen 2000, 109.
2 Jüngel 1999, VII; Mattes 2004, 23-24.
3 Pannenberg 2000 a, 289; 295; 297. Mattes cites Literaturereferences to Pannenberg in Mattes 2004, 56 notes 1 and 2. He gives literature also to Jüngel (Mattes 2004, 23, notes 1 and 2). To this discussion is linked the question of how the doctrine of justification is understood as a criterion of the Christian doctrine faith. Because this criteriological character of the doctrine of justification has been researched quite a lot in this connection I exclude this question from the scope of this article. On the discussion see e.g. Saarinen 2000, 119-137 and Rytkönen 2006. According to Saarinen (2000, 122-123) the concept of criteria has “brought to the discussion on the doctrine of justification epistemological and hermeneutical features” which originate from the neo-Kantian theory of knowledge in the thought of Hans Joachim Iwand and Rudolf Herrmann and lead towards an “epistemological reduction of the doctrine”. In the second wave of discussion, Saarinen (2000, 130) sees the doctrine of criterion to be more in the background, having been replaced by the conviction that the Evangelical and Roman Catholic understandings of Christianity are incompatible.
thought, I will refer mainly to the third part of his trilogy, Systematische Theologie III (1993), the collection of articles entitled Kirche und Ökumene (2000a) and a lecture, Hintergründe des Streites um die Rechtfertigungslehre in der evangelischen Theologie (2000b). For both thinkers, the material has been chosen mainly from their mature period. The thesis of this article is that the theological difference between these two thinkers is rooted in their different ways of both joining and criticizing the heritage of modern theology. Both have drawn inspiration from Karl Barth and neoProtestantism and paid considerable attention to God-talk in the modern context. Jüngel is more hermeneutically oriented, following in the footsteps of Karl Barth, Rudolf Bultmann, Gerhard Ebeling and the linguistic turn. He is also a proponent of the “theology of the Word of God”. Pannenberg, on the other hand, is a proponent and pioneer of the historical-universal Trinitarian theological paradigm which was inspired by the work of G.W.F. Hegel.4 On the other hand, Jüngel has also practiced a hermeneutics of the doctrine of the Trinity, especially in his work, Gott als Geheimnis der Welt (1977).
1. The Justification of the Ungodly - Eberhard Jüngel’s Interpretation of Justification
1.1. The Doctrine of Justification as “justice struggle” and “fight doctrine”
Eberhard Jüngel interprets the hermeneutical-theological function of the doctrine of justification with the help of the concepts of struggle for justice” (Rechtsstreit) and “doctrine of fight” (Kampfeslehre) and sees Paul’s understanding of justification to be clearly in tension with the concept of justification in James’ epistle and in the Gospel of Matthew.5 So he seems to be rather strong in underlining the Latin interpretation of the doctrine of reconciliation, which operates with juridical concepts.
4 Pannenberg is criticized for supporting the idea that metaphysics can serve theology. Mattes 2004, 72-77, on the one hand, understands Pannenberg to argue for thereality of the Christian faith in order to answer contemporary critics but, on the other, regards as problematic the gulf between values and facts which remains and results in an understanding of faith as private and subjective. However, Mattes seems not to pay enough attention to the possibility that the integrative and open model of Pannenberg can, at its best, help in understanding the totality of the culture more comprehensively and in a way which can be communicated in an intellectually understandable fashion. In the background of Mattes’ criticism is his narrative approach which does not aim so much at creating a generally understandable intellectual frame of reference, but has more immediate proclamational objectives. On this, see Mattes 2004, 72. Mattes 2004,73 finds it ironic that both Jüngel and Pannenberg see their contributions as methodological alternatives to each other, but he sees, in the background of their thought, Hegel’s idea that the finite and infinite can be reconciled through thehistorical phases of divine incorporation. Mattes regards this – with Oswald Bayer – as a false generalization of the Lutheran doctrine, finitum capax infiniti. Mattes (75, 81) also criticizes Pannenberg for his identification of metaphysical categories with soteriological ones and states that theology becomes, in this way, primarily speculation, not proclamation; at the same time, faith is replaced by deeds. The criticism of Mattes is thus closely linked with his own model of proclamatory theology. The objectivity of his conclusions is questionable when he seems to doubt even the theological intentions of Pannenberg on the basis of his own model. Referring to Oswald Bayer (Schriftautorität und Vernunft – ekklesiologisches Problem, in LWRNK, 166-167), Mattes summarizes his criticism of speculation and universal rationality in the sentence, “there isno rationality, only rationalities!” Finally Mattes 2004, 84 crystallizes his view: “The gospel is lost in a contemplatio by which to ground both metaphysics and ecumenics.” On the consequences of the disappearance of metaphysics to theology and generally to the fragmentation of culture and about new basic models for solving this question, see Martikainen 1999, 11-24.
5 Jüngel 1999, 16; 41.
Jüngel’s concept of “justice struggle” refers to the conviction that the doctrine of justification is, at its core, persuasive and that it convinces the hearer with arguments so that the truth might overcome the lie. According to Jüngel, this is the basic function of all theology. That is why the doctrine of justification is, in his understanding, a “fight doctrine “. From this point of view, Paul and Luther are first class polemicists. However, he does not mean to imply that they aim at psychological indoctrination, but rather at the defense of the glory of God and the dignity of humanity.6 When highlighting the glory of God, Jüngel emphasizes a perspective which is commonly seen as a typically Reformed line of thought.
According to Jüngel, the doctrine of justification leads inevitably to questions of “right talk” concerning God and human beings. The evidence and the criteria for the justice struggle are given by the Reformation “exclusive particles”: Christ alone (solus Christus), grace alone (sola gratia), through the word alone (solo verbo), faith alone (sola fide). The particle “alone” (solo) leads, in its exclusive claim, to a conflict regarding the “truth of life”. Yet it is not a fight for the sake of fight, but the objective is “just peace”. That is to say, the uncompromising struggle for the truth of faith is combined with the experience that this truth includes unanimity. The only ground of this polemic is Jesus Christ, and the function of the doctrine of justification is, according to Jüngel, to make sure that theology will not make any compromises.7
For Jüngel, the aim of the theological sentences is by no means to be introverted. On the contrary, they aim at proclamation and witness and towards a growing common understanding about the growth of justified sinners and about the understanding of the gospel itself. A deepening understanding of the gospel is, for Jüngel, the only way to mutual understanding between Christian confessions and churches. The Gospel is for him the “soul” of peace, for which the struggle concerning justification yearns.8
Thus, Jüngel’s interpretation seems to emphasize the Latin doctrine of reconciliation and the juridical character of justification and, simultaneously, an understanding of justification as imputation. In this way he aligns himself with the tradition which has been linked especially to the name of Philipp Melanchthon. The Melanchthonian tradition has been seen to have a shadowy side in that its version of justification separates functional Christology from ontological Christology. Moreover, the one-sidedly imputative interpretation of the doctrine of justification also led to problems in understanding the relation of dogmatics, ethics, faith and the reality of life. The dominance of forensic imputation in the interpretation of justification has also bypassed Martin Luther’s basic idea regarding the Trinitarian-Christological basis of justification and, in this way, the Athanasian concept of justification as creator of a real and essential (ontological) connection with God in Christ.9
6 Jüngel 1999, 40-41.
7 Jüngel 1999, 41-42.
8 Jüngel 1999, 42.
9 The paradigmatic work of the newer Finnish ecumenical Luther-research is Tuomo Mannermaa’s book, Christ present in faith (1979, in English: 2005, Aubsburg Fortress). Mannermaa states in his book (p. 13): “When stating the idea
In order to investigate the matter more carefully and thoroughly, I will deal next with Jüngel’s interpretation of the justification of the ungodly as a “forensic act”.
1.2. A Forensic Act as External Act of the Word
Jüngel points out that the justification of the ungodly happens through “the word alone” (solo verbo), because the word alone can both “declare” and “make” righteous. However, the question arises, how “the word” is here understood and what “making righteous” means.
Through an appeal to the words of Melanchthon in the Apology of the Augsburg confession, Jüngel argues that the Reformers, would have considered justification to be a forensic act before the court of God,: “Justification means here, according to the forensic use of language, to declare the accused free and righteous”. Because the accused still remains guilty, he cannot appeal to his own righteousness, but only to the alien righteousness (imputatio alienae iustitiae) which is freely given him through faith in Christ.10
Jüngel is familiar with the accusations directed towards Melanchthon, according to which he would have understood justification “purely imputatively” and even “corrupted the Lutheran doctrine of justification” (Karl Holl). However, Jüngel does not want to continue discussing this historical polemics but to give his own interpretation about what the forensic doctrine of justification is directed against and how it may not be understood:
according to which the presence of the Trinity in faith is not the same as ’righteousness of faith’, the Formula Concordiae leans toward the theology of the late Melanchthon, to which practically the whole of Lutheranism after Luther joins. Justification is understood wholly forensically, as imputative reception of forgiveness based on Christ’s obedience and merit. Inhabitatio Dei is only the consequence of this ’righteousness of faith’ … Luther doesn’t separate the person (persona) from the work (officium), but Christ Himself, both his person and his work, is the Christian righteousness, that is the righteousness of faith.” Compare with Vainio 2004, 79, together with Rolf Schäfer’s study Christologie und Sittlichkeit of Melanchthon’s frühen loci 1961 (36-38; 59-60) which state that the relationship between Christology and justification is, in Loci 1521, unclear. In the thought of the young Melanchthon, the incarnation does not have soteriological relevance so much as preconditioning and informative relevance. According to Vainio (2004, 107), the following development can be seen in Melanchthon’s understanding of the doctrine of justification: “(1)
Justification is a process which goes on through a qualitative change in which justifying trust in Christ and aspiration towards good works awake in the human being. This trust is counted as righteousness before God. (Loci 1521) (2)
Justification as accepting imputation concerns only a person’s relation to God. To this also belongs the effective making righteous through the Holy Spirit, which isn’t a part of justification. (The commentary on Romans 1531) (3)
Justification is declaring as righteous and giving the Holy Spirit. The qualitative change which the Spirit causes isn’t a part of righteousness before God. (The late works)”
10 Jüngel 1999, 175. Mattes 2004, 29-30 gives Jüngel some credit for trying to understand the consequences of faith, but he considers his concept of the “experience of an experience”, which Jüngel uses when describing justifying faith as coming extra nos, in danger of basing theology on experience as in Schleiermacher’s category of “absolute dependence”. In the background of the problem should be Jüngel’s aim to bring together the experience theology of Rudolf Bultmann and the theology of word of Karl Barth. Mattes himself emphasizes the primacy of language and the word of promise.
The forensic understanding of the act of justification should give expression to the act of justification as an act in which God accepts the sinner as righteous on the basis of the righteousness of God alone, a righteousness that is totally alien to the sinner. As such it was manifested in the person of Jesus Christ. … I am always accepted before another. I am always accepted before a forum. … As accepted, the justified is always in relation to an instance which is outside of himself (extra se).11
The question is whether, in Jüngel’s thought, righteousness can somehow “live” in the justified or whether it is only an external relation, although Luther still understood justification as both favor (favor) and gift (donum) and considered it fundamental to alien righteousness that “Christ is present in faith” and really unified with a sinner (unio cum Christo) in a way which really renews the sinner. At the same time the justified sinner is always dependent on the foundation of righteousness outside of his old self: Christ alone.12
The external orientation of Jüngel’s basic idea becomes clear when he underlines: “The sinner is outside of himself righteous” and quotes Luther’s Commentary on Romans: “extrinsece Iustificantur semper” (Römerbriefvorlesung 1515/16, WA 56, 268, 27f.). From this Jüngel concludes: “Excluded is the understanding of justification as a process of the kind of sanctification in which a human being in some way co-operates with God.”13 Thus, Jüngel clearly distinguishes the punctual act of justification from that of sanctification.
It has been suggested that Jüngel adopted from his teachers Barth and Ebeling the understanding of justification as “word event” (Wortgeschehen). This basic idea seems to be a clear systematic departure point for his argumentation. It is obvious for example in this quotation: “The forensic understanding of the event of justification should express the event of the justification of the ungodly as an event in which God accepts the sinner as righteous …” The underlining of the happening act, persuasive dispute and actual external relations refers to the heritage of the dialectical and hermeneutical theology which still makes use of Immanuel Kant’s distinction between the “thing in itself” and the “thing for us”. That is to say, we do not reach the “thing in itself” but only that which it is “for us”. The subject himself gives the meaning to encounters with the external world. From this originates the hermeneutical and dialectical orientation and the alien character of the in nobis-perspective which results in the rejection of the idea of Christ being really and in his essence present in faith.
In conclusion, a question arises regarding how Jüngel argues for the renewal of the Christian life and a Christian person through faith.
11 Jüngel 1999, 175-176: „Die Intention der forensischen Auffassung des Rechtfertigungsgeschehens ist es, das Ereignis der Rechtfertigung des Gottlosen als ein Ereignis zur Geltung zu bringen, durch das der Sünder allein aufgrund der ihm ganz und gar fremden Gerechtigkeit Gottes, wie sie sich in der Person Jesu Christi manifestiert hat, von Gott als Gerechter akzeptiert wird. … Akzeptiert werde ich immer von einem anderen. Anerkannt werde ich vor einem Forum. … Als Anerkannter ist der Gerechtfertigte auf eine Instanz außer sich (extra se) bezogen.“
12 On justification as favor and gift, see Mannermaa 1979, 53. On the meaning of the unio cum Christo-thought, see Peura 1990, 251.
13 Jüngel 1999, 176.
1.3. The Effectiveness of the Forensic Declaration as Just
What effect does Jüngel’s doctrine of justification have on the place of the declaration as just, as an event of justification? In searching for an answer to this, it is critical that we follow the inner logic of Jüngel’s theology, in which he examines justification in the light of Romans 4:17: “In this God Abraham believed, in him who makes the dead alive and calls the non-existing to exist”. Jüngel summarizes:
The forensic act of declaring the sinner justified should also be understood according to this rule. The forensic act of a sinner is, as such, the effective act of justification. … Imputation of alien righteousness (imputatio alienae iustitiae) is understood correctly only when it is understood as such an imputative declaration of the godly righteousness that it changes the being of a human being effectively 14
Thus, Jüngel clearly aims to correct the interpretation of a purely forensic doctrine of justification, which would not have any continuous effect in the Christian life of a person in reality. However, when he rejects the presence of righteousness in a human being and underlines in his interpretation of the principle of “alone” the external relation to the justifying God and Christ, it remains unclear what kind of “effective change” this is and on what it is based. In other words, what does it mean that God’s word is simultaneously freeing “judgment” (Urteil) and “creative” (schöpferisches) word?
Jüngel emphasizes that “talk about the renewal of the inner man must be understood solely from the point of view of the event of the word of God declaring just”. The inner man is renewed by the external word. Thus, he represents a kind of relational ontology. The Augustinian concept of the presence of the justifying grace of God in me means, in Jüngel’s view, the effect of the proclaimed word of God in man. From this perspective, Jüngel sees a good case for the Luther-interpretation expressed by Tuomo Mannermaa in the book, Christ present in faith 15
14 Jüngel 1999, 180: „Der forensische Akt der Gerechtsprechung des Sünders ist als solcher der effektive Akt der Gerechtmachung des Gottlosen. … Die Zurechnung der fremden Gerechtigkeit (imputatio alienae iustitiae) ist nur dann recht verstanden, wenn sie als ein solches Zusprechen der göttlichen Gerechtigkeit begriffen wird, das das Sein des Menschen effektiv verändert.“ Compare Peura 1990, 124. Peura distinguishes in Luther’s thought, between forensic effectiveness on the one hand, that is, that a person’s sins are declared forgiven and, on the other hand, the sanative, healing righteousness, which means that we become like God. Luther’s doctrine of justification is thus forensicsanative.
15 Jüngel 1999, 181 and note145: “Das ist das Wahrheitsmoment der Lutherinterpretation von T. Mannermaa Der im Glauben gegenwärtige Christus. Rechtfertigung und Vergottung. Zum ökumenischen Dialog, 1989.” Mattes 2004, 47 sees in Jüngel’s linking of forensic and effective justification a connection not only to Luther but also to Augustine’s concept of the sinful self, which can only use (uti) God, not enjoy (frui) him and can only use others, not to respect them. This is in connection with the replacing of the old identity through thenew identity which is externallyconnected to Christ. Mattes 2004, 50 draws a rather compelling conclusion that, although Jüngel is clearly indebted to Luther when he considers therighteousness of faith to be theheart of theology, he has caught the “virus of Hegel” when he
According to Jüngel, the justifying word cannot stay only in itself, but the creative word calls man forth and sets him outside himself, so that he comes to himself through other people but especially with the “totally other kind” of God. The being of man is thus constituted, according to Jüngel, in such a way that the justifying word relates a person to Jesus Christ and lets him come to himself outside of himself (extra se). The external relation thus defines a man’s essence. A man has not found his real selfhood as long as he is only “in himself”. From this perspective justification is “making just –through the word alone”.16
Jüngel understands participation in the death and resurrection of Christ in baptism to mean partaking in the “history” of Christ. On this basis, he considers the justified to be in a process: the sinner, which is “nothing”, receives “with Christ” an invitation “to be” and to be “in becoming righteous” (im Werden Gerechter). The continuative being of righteousness in a justified person is not quite clearly formulated in his model, nor is the character of the change in the “inner man” of the justified sinner. Clarification can be forsought in Jüngel’s analysis of the expression “faith alone”, which includes three other aspects: “Christ alone”, “grace alone”, “through the word alone”.17 It is worth noting that Jüngel, in characteristically creative continuity with the tradition which the turn to the dialectical theology of the word brought, adds to the traditional trio “faith alone, grace alone, through Christ alone” the expression “through the word alone”.
1.4. Faith as Act of Life Oriented to the Event of Justification
Jüngel begins with a definition according to which, “… when faith is a heartfelt ‘yes’ to Jesus Christ, faith is justifying faith, fides iustificans.”18 Jüngel unfolds this concept of faith through an analysis of faith as finding oneself and forgetting, assurance of salvation, constituent of the person and the community of believers as a community of saints.
Jüngel defines “the faith of the heart” as faith which is connected with man’s existence and the centre of life, “in which is decided about the whole human being”. Thus, Christian faith, which is holistic in its character, touches the core of man and renews him. It is a question of rebirth in that faith defines the existence of man in its entirety as “yes to God”.19
It is noteworthy that Jüngel rejects the definition of faith as a deed of obedience and decision which constitutes the new existence, because in this way justifying faith would be interpreted in terms of the transcendental idealism of Kant and Fichte. Interpreting the intention of Rudolf Bultmann, considers the rational to be epistemologically prior to the sensual and connects Bultmann’s paradox of history and eschatology to Barth’s analogy of faith through his concept of the “analogy of advent”.
16 Jüngel 1999, 182.
17 Jüngel 1999, 201.
18 Jüngel 1999, 202: “Als dieses von Herzen kommende Ja zu Jesus Christus ist der Glaube rechtfertigender Glaube, ist er fides iustificans.”
19 Jüngel 1999, 203.
Jüngel underlines that faith justifies, not as “yes” or “no”, but because it says yes to the freeing, justifying judgment of God. A person thus confesses, by the agreeing answer of faith that has already been graciously decided on his behalf, and a new human being is created. Man does not create his new humanity but notices, finds himself to be a new person through faith in Christ. Jüngel summarizes: “Faith is the discovery and of the self as being-released-in-freedom”.20
As such, faith is “…ec-centric existence. Faith follows the movement of the word which justifies the sinner.” The foundation of faith is a word event. “In faith he trusts in God and trusts in the movement of grace and God’s word. And that is why the alien righteousness of God becomes in faith one’s own righteousness”. So, if there is a Christian mysticism, it is, in Jüngel’s thought, “fellowship of life” and “fellowship of the road” with God. The unio mystica is not the goal but the road on which man, joined to God, in a way forgets himself and reaches the assurance of salvation through ec-centric faith in the election of God and in being a child God. A person is thus not sure about himself and his faith but about God and his mercy.21
Quoting Luther, Jüngel further argues that “faith makes a person: Fides facit personam” (Die Zirkulardisputation de veste nuptiali. 1537, WA 39/I, 283, 1.). Yet in Jüngel’s view, this does not mean that faith, as a human achievement, creates the person but that the person is constituted “through the word of God, which faith follows…” In this way, Luther continues, “God constitutes a person through faith” (WA 39/I, 283, 15f.: “quod persona sit facta per fidem a Deo”.). Thus, a tree must first become good so that it may produce good fruit and not vice versa.22 Jüngel does not analyze the relationship between word, faith and person more precisely. However, he seems to interpret the birth of a person through a word event (Gerhard Ebeling) and relational ontology.
Jüngel considers the priesthood of all believers to be an essential implication of his understanding of justification and faith. This is because a constituent part of the event of justification is Christ’s gift of a share in his own clerical ministry. Once the sacrifice of Jesus had overcome the old sacrifice and cultic priesthood, it was replaced by the “priesthood of all believers”, which removes the difference between clerics and lay people. The result is an immediate relationship to God, which should not be misunderstood as the neo-protestants did. The of all believers is, as Jüngel points out, “a social phenomenon”. It is not a license for religious individualism but creates the basis for the community-character of a congregation.23
Jüngel questions episcopal ordination as a criterion for genuine ministry and points out that apostolic succession means proclamation and administration of the sacraments in accordance with the Scriptures. How one measures what is in accordance with the Scriptures remains an open question. According to Jüngel, all believers have, in principle, the required abilities for this. He
20 Jüngel 1999, 205: “Der Glaube ist insofern die Selbstentdeckung und Selbsterfahrung des Zur-Freiheit-befreitworden-Seins.”
21 Jüngel 1999, 206-207. As Mattes 2004, 47 sees it, Jüngel’s formulation of justification as word event pushes into the background Luther’s concept of creation as mediator of the word and the word as mediator of creation.
22 Jüngel 1999, 210.
23 Jüngel 1999, 214-215.
considers the ministry installed by God to have been instituted for the sake of order. “Rightly ordained” ministers – or bishops – do not have, according to Jüngel, any special power (potestas) or permanent characte24r (character indelebilis).25
1.5. The Presuppositions of Jüngel’s Relational Understanding of Justification
As a conclusion regarding the philosophical-theological presuppositions of Jüngel’s thought, which also influence his interpretation of the doctrine of justification, it can be stated that “ec-centric existence” as fellowship of life with God is not a fellowship of being or of will but a relational and existential fellowship. In spite of the critical distancing, structural similarities can be seen both to the transcendental Luther-interpretation of the neo-protestant Luther-renaissance and to dialectical theology, which points out God’s external influence on us.
Like his teacher Gerhard Ebeling, Jüngel seems to interpret Luther’s theology as a replacement of Aristotelian substance metaphysics with relational ontology and an existential world view. For instance in Finnish Luther-research, it has been stated that it is possible to see a third alternative to the “static” substance metaphysics and “dynamic” relational existential ontology. According to that alternative, faith means the presence of a new “reality of being” (Seinswirklichkeit) in a believer, which cannot be thought of only in a new relation to God.26
Jüngel does not understand faith as “being” but as “in becoming righteous”, as his expression, “im Werden Gerechter” shows. When faith is understood one-sidedly, as an external relation, it lacks the concept which Luther still represents that Christ is the form of faith (Christus forma fidei).27 Yet it should be noted that Jüngel points out the effectiveness of the forensic act and, from this perspective, considers the emphasis in Tuomo Mannermaa’s Luther-interpretation to be justified.
24 Risto Saarinen has analyzed this in his dissertation Gottes Wirken auf uns. Die transzendentale Deutung des Gegenwart Christi Motives (1988).
25 Jüngel 1999, 216-217.
26 On Luther’s understanding of the structure of being, see Juntunen 1998, 129-160. Mattes 2004, 31 sees Jüngel as ontologizing justification and using it as a tool to understand God not as a highest creature, as in substance metaphysics, but as a “union of life and death for the sake of life”. According to Mattes, in the background of Jüngel’s thought are 1) a social ontology which has received influences from the philosophies of Hegel and Heidegger, 2) a Heideggerian concept of the primacy of possibility to actuality, 3) nothingness as a terrifying thing that the resurrection of Jesus overcomes, 4) God as foundation of subjectivity, 5) the metaphoric and non-discursive character of truth, 6) the encounter with the external word as the basis of faith, 7) human being as Lord, not tyrant of creation, 8) the adoption of the thesis of Rahner and Barth according to which the immanent Trinity is the same as the economic Trinity and 9) the use of the concept “correspondence” to describe a) the relation of the godly to the godly, b) the relation of the godly to the human and c) a person’s relation to a person. Mattes 2004, 38 considers Jüngel to differ from Luther in that Jüngel moves in an Augustinian-Cartesian landscape in which I-you personalism is underlined and nature is no more understood as a “mask” for God nor the sacraments as media of grace. On the other hand – obviously following the criticism of Oswald Bayer – Mattes (2004, 43) describes the way in which Jüngel follows Hegel in describing events on the cross as self-defining of God, as “natural theology of the cross”. He also considers (2004, 46) Jüngel’s concept of the “correspondence” of divine and human too optimistic or intellectualizing a concept in which faith is in danger of becoming sight.
27 Jüngel 1999, 201. On Ebeling see Juntunen 1998, 137.
This emphasis can be seen in that he underlines the social character of faith and criticizes neoProtestantism for its “religious individualism”.
However, this short analysis seems to confirm the suspicion that Jüngel’s interpretation of the forensic declaration as righteous is the basic precondition for the justification of the ungodly and that a relational ontology lies behind his criticism of the JDDJ. He is critical of his colleague Pannenberg, blaming him for the concept of “justifying the just”, which threatens the evangelical conviction about the “justification of the ungodly” as such, as he himself understands it. Jüngel also criticizes Pannenberg for his understanding of baptism as belonging to the “fellowship which is established by justification”. Jüngel himself emphasizes the distinction between baptism and justifying faith: “Baptism, after all, does not justify a person. What justifies is the faith which accepts the justifying word of God”.28
The juxtaposition of baptism and faith which Jüngel presents seems, for its part, to imply that he understands faith essentially cognitive-relationally, not ontologically. The distinction Jüngel makes between justifying faith and integration into the body of Christ presupposes an understanding of the church according to which baptism neither gives a child a faith of his own nor functions primarily as a medium of grace but is instead a promise of grace to the one who has been taken into the fellowship of the congregation. Grace is activated only after the conscious yes-word of faith. Thus, Jüngel seems, from this point of view, to follow in the footsteps of the late Melanchthon, as opposed to the understanding of Luther.29
2. Pannenberg and the “justification of the just”?
2.1.
Pannenberg and Participation in the Life of the Trinitarian God as Basis for Justification
According to his Trinitarian theological approach,30 Wolfhart Pannenberg considers “being God’s child” (Gotteskindschaft) to be the basic concept of Christian existence. Pannenberg defines:
28 Jüngel 1999, 199 and the note 208.
29 On the differences between Luther and Melanchthon in baptismal theology, see for example Pihkala 1986, 248-249.
30 Martikainen 1999, 39-54 states that Pannenberg argues, in his Systematische Theologie I, that prolegomena can be rejected and theology can begin straight from the object itself, that is, the doctrine of the Trinity, which simultaneously forms the basis of all theology. Pannenberg rather heavily criticizes Albrecht Ritschl’s understanding regarding the relation of the doctrine of the Trinity to classical metaphysics. Pannenberg’s approach bears a debt to his predecessors, such as Karl Barth and G.W.F. Hegel. Karl Barth rejected the prolegomena and replaced it with the word of God, adopting from Hegel an emphasis on the doctrine of the Trinity in spite of the common criticism in Enlightenment philosophy towards the “metaphysical” doctrine of the Trinity. What Pannenberg adds to this tradition is a more concrete taking seriously of the historical reality of revelation and the material of the New Testament. The consequence is that the economic and immanent Trinity cannot be clearly distinguished from each other. This has been criticized for instance by some Orthodox theologians. On Martikainen’s analysis, Pannenberg does, as a matter of fact, begin with the “distinction of the persons of the Trinityon the basis of their functions in salvation history. When Jesus distinguishes himself from the Father and subordinates himself to the will of God and thus makes room for the demand of the godhood of the Father, he is manifested, precisely in this distinction, as the Son of God and one with the Father who sent him.” The “ecstatic” distinction of the Son himself is thus constitutive of the eternal relation of the Son to the
For Paul our being God’s children comes to expression in calling on God as Father. We may see here an expression of trust in God and also of love for him in response to his love for us. But in keeping with the sonship of Jesus (cf. Phil. 2:5), believers do not receive the Father’s love for themselves alone. They can abide in the love of God, and hence in fellowship with God, only as they pass it on to others (Luke 11:4 [cf. 6:36]; Matt. 5:44-45). As children of God, then, believers are caught up both in the Son’s fellowship of love with the Father and in the obedience of the Son of God on his path to the world.31
Pannenberg joins in his concept, which points out the childhood of God, to an emphasis on the Sonhood of God in the newer Protestant theology. According to Schleiermacher, and for instance Albrecht Ritschl, being God’s child is the positive content of justification. In the background was an exegetical orientation towards the proclamation of Jesus himself. Pannenberg aims to take the findings of exegetics into consideration as much as possible when drawing systematic theological conclusions. Worth noting, from the point of view of the justification theme, is that Jüngel regards it as problematic to harmonize the teaching of Paul, James and the Sermon on the Mount. Pannenberg, on the other hand, underlines that an emphasis on faith in God and grace are essential to the whole witness of the New Testament. Although Paul uses different terminology about “justification”, the core of his message is about the same thing as the rest of the writings in the New Testament: “the salvation of God freely given in Christ”.32
Pannenberg considers the message of justification to connect a Christian to “sonhood” – not just as “heir” but to life in a fellowship with Jesus Christ as Son and to partake in his relationship to the Father as Son. This theme of Sonhood can be connected with John’s incarnational theology and to the view of salvation which is essential to the patristics and especially to the theology of the Church of the East. On the other hand, the doctrine of justification has a criteriological foundation, which distinguishes it from other early Christian soteriological views. Pannenberg considers it crucial, both ecumenically and from the point of view of seeing the totality of the New Testament message, that no single early Christian concept of soteriology be raised to a special position. The various
Father. In connection with the concept of the Romanian Orthodox theologian Dumitru Staniloae regarding the three completely transparent subjects, Pannenberg sees the persons of the Trinity as fulfilling the life of the independent “centers of action”. This is a clear adaptation of the classical concept of the mutual perichoresis of the persons of the Trinity.
31 Pannenberg 1998, 211-212. Originally in German Pannenberg 1993, 238: “Die Sohnschaft oder Kindschaft im Verhältnis zu Gott äußert sich nach Paulus in der Anrufung Gottes als Vater. Man wird darin den Ausdruck sowohl des Vertrauens zu Gott als auch der Liebe zu ihm in Erwiderung der Liebe Gottes zu uns erblicken dürfen. Die Glaubenden empfangen aber, der Sohnschaft Jesu entsprechend (vgl. Phil 2,5), die Liebe des Vaters nicht nur für sich. Sie können in der Liebe Gottes – und also in der Gemeinschaft mit Gott – nur bleiben, indem sie sie an andere weitergeben (Lk 11,4; vgl. 6,36; Mt 5,44 f.). So sind die Glaubenden als Gotteskinder in die Liebesgemeinschaft des Sohnes mit dem Vater ebenso einbezogen wie in den Gehorsamsweg des Sohnes Gottes in die Welt.”
32 Pannenberg 1993, 239-249.
interpretations ought to be seen as each others’ correctives which safeguard from one-sided interpretations.33
According to Pannenberg, Luther managed to get near to the Pauline doctrine of justification by connecting faith to fellowship with Christ. On the other hand, Melancthon’s “forensic” interpretation of the doctrine of justification and its ultimate version in Solida Declaratio (SD III, 11 ff.), did not connect justification and the renewal of man organically together but saw the ethical renewal only as an addition following justification. Pannenberg describes Luther’s understanding of fellowship with Christ in faith to be an “ecstatic” fellowship which builds the foundation of justification. Referring to the sermon of Luther on Duplex iustitia (1519), he analyzes that the Reformer saw the foundation of justification to be in Christ and in that the believer is, through faith outside of himself, one with Christ. That is, he partakes in his righteousness. Likewise he refers to Luther’s lecture on the Letter to the Galatians (1520), in which he states that “through faith we become one with Christ” (per fidem efficiatur unum cum Christo, Gal 2:16). Also in the commentary on Galatians 1535/36 the same thing can be seen, in spite of the differences in verbal expression.34
Thus Pannenberg’s interpretation is not purely externally relational.35 In his relational ontology – in which the basic dynamic concept is the “ec-stasis” of a person36 – he underlines that, through this “ecstatic” connection with Christ which is outside of us (extra nos), he is simultaneously in us (in nos).
37 On this basis, Luther states in the Heidelberg disputation (1518) that Christ is through faith in us and consequently we too can fulfill the commandments. This builds the basis for the thought of the “happy exchange” (commercium admirabile) according to which Christ takes and carries our sins and we can partake in his merit. In addition to this, Luther’s expression simul iustus et peccator
33 Pannenberg 1993, 240-241. The Pentecostal theologian and ecumenist, professor Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen refers (2009,6) favorably to the thought of Pannenberg that justification should not be regarded as the only normative metaphor when talking about salvation in the interpretation of the New Testament.
34 Pannenberg 1993, 242-243.
35 On the impact of neo-Kantianism on the underlining of the importance of the external relation, see for instance Mannermaa 1987, 22-26.
36 Martikainen 1999, 50-52 analyzes the basic preconditions of Pannenberg’s relational concept of being. According to Pannenberg, a relational concept of being presupposes a distinction between essence and existence whereas in the classical model, for example Plato’s or Aristotle’s concept of being, being is always being as something. From this distinction it follows, in the thought of Pannenberg, that the general being of God is known, but his essence is known only in the Trinitarian relationships, which are opened up only through revelation, in which God’s essence manifests itself, but it isn’t the essence itself which is only in the relations. The distinction comes close to the Eastern Orthodox thought according to which the revelation of God occurs through energies, but His essence remains a secret. In distinction to Pannenberg’s model, God’s essence thus remains in this neopalamistic model clearer a mystery. However, Pannenberg also aims to make sure, through the non-anticipatory character of the function of the Holy Spirit, an eschatological horizon, although he on the other hand speaks about the sameness of the economical and immanent Trinity on the basis that the Spirit remains the same. Kärkkäinen 2009, 12-13 interprets that Pannenberg’s thought about ”ecstatic union with Christ” is only another way to express ”Christ’s presence in faith”.
37 Martikainen 1999, 52 analyzes Pannenberg’s concept of ecstasy in the following way:”In the revelation history manifesting and in the relations appearing essence of God can be in the human reach only in ecstasy through Christ in the Holy Spirit. At the same time a person takes part in the God of creation: through being carried away in ecstasy into God outside of himself a person at the same time separates from himself and becomes himself.”
becomes, according to Pannenberg, understandable when righteousness is counted on behalf of the empirical self which one gets when being, through faith, one with Christ and his righteousness. The one who is righteous through faith is never in himself completely changed, although Luther speaks of “growing in righteousness”. This growth is a consequence of the justification, not its precondition.38
According to Pannenberg, Luther’s (and, ecumenically interestingly, also Calvin’s) interpretation of fellowship with Christ relativizes the juxtaposition of the doctrine of justification with the Council of Trent and helps to see that they are only two different descriptions of the same event. However, on the basis of the New Testament material, Pannenberg sees shortcomings, not only in Melanchthon’s description and that of the Formula Concordiae, but also in that of Luther and in other Reformation descriptions of the event of the justification.39
Pannenberg clarifies his thought about how partaking in Christ through faith can be understood. He states that, in the proclamation of Paul, faith is both a personal relationship to Jesus Christ and a belonging to the Church and to the apostolic faith that it, as a communion, confesses. In Reformation theology, rebirth is connected with justification, which happens through the Holy Spirit in baptism (Joh. 3:5; Tiit. 3:5). Taking notice of this, it is peculiar how little in the Reformation churches the connection between justification and baptism is a theme – apart from the theology of Luther. The Reformer’s doctrine of baptism is, according to Paul Althaus, the “doctrine of justification in a concrete form”. In the case of Melanchthon the connection of justification with baptism has already disappeared from sight.40
The Council of Trent instead set baptism at the center of the decree on justification. Had the Reformation done the same, its doctrine of justification by faith would have been, according to Pannenberg, less under suspicion. After all baptism is, according to the tradition, sacramentum fidei. Through emphasis on baptism, both the forgiveness of sins and the adoption as God’s child, as a partaker in the relationship of Jesus Christ to the Father as Son, would have been better expressed. Likewise, the relationship between the being of a believer in Christ and his earthly pilgrimage would have received new clarity. If the Council of Trent did not sufficiently emphasize the importance of faith in justification, the Reformation did not, except Luther, sufficiently emphasize the relationship between baptism and justification but – differing from Paul – argued for
38 Pannenberg 1993, 244-245.
39 Pannenberg 1993, 248.
40 Pannenberg 1993, 261-262. Compare with Mattes 2004, 63: “Pannenberg fails to understand that baptismal theology offers the effectual dimension to forensic justification.” Especially disturbing for Mattes seems to be the thought that baptism is a mystical union with the divine (Mattes 2004, 71). In his book, The Role of Justification in Contemporary Theology, in which he analyzes Pannenberg’s, Jürgen Moltmann’s, Robert Jenson’s and Oswald Bayer’s understanding of justification, Mattes describes Pannenberg’s model as “justification in the theology of metaphysical one” and thus over-emphasizes the role of metaphysics in Pannenberg’s theology. Mattes himself tends to lean in his model, which favors proclamation instead of thinking about the reality intellectually, especially to the “poetological theology” of Oswald Bayer which underlines the importance of promissio and theology of the word. Compare with Mattes 2004, 171: “Bayer's view of justification, compared to those of the previous thinkers, is markedly robust and thoroughly ready to assist the church in its mission.”
justification by faith based on a separate act of justification. Anticipating JDDJ, Pannenberg states that the differences are not real but school differences. Both in Reformation and in Catholic theology, fellowship with Christ is the basis, and both need the guidance of the Bible in order to mend their shortcomings.41
Pannenberg regards baptism as the connecting link between all the New Testament salvation models and theological interpretations. At the deepest level, the new relationship to God, which is created through the new birth, is based on participation in the relationship of Jesus to the Father. It is all about fellowship with Christ in faith, which includes fellowship with Jesus on his way to the cross and the resurrection. At the core is a participation in the internal life of the Trinitarian God which builds the ground of Christian hope beyond the borders of death.42
The function of the message of justification is to assure the believer that he or she is partaking of the eschatological salvation and to show that salvation is accomplished by God without human merit. This critical function has made the Pauline doctrine of justification actual at pivotal points in church history. The doctrine shows, according to Pannenberg, that Christian life is life in faith which is fellowship with Jesus Christ and through him partaking in the divine love which, through the ecstasy of faith, brings hope and love and thus protects from false egocentrism.43
2.2. From the Pure Imputation to the Declaring as Just of a Believer
When analyzing the background of evangelical criticism towards the JDDJ, Pannenberg sees an important reason for that critique in the still powerful tradition in which the doctrine of justification is interpreted almost purely forensic-imputatively. Essential background figures from the time of the Reformation are here Melancthon and Calvin. In his defense of the Augsburg Confession (Apologia), Melancthon still aimed to unite the imputative and realistic interpretations of the doctrine of justification. After 1532 he uses the term “to justify” only in the imputative sense. This tradition of interpretation then had an influence on the Formula Concordiae. According to Pannenberg, Calvin likewise understood, so Pannenberg, justification as forgiveness of sins on the basis of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ.44
Pannenberg sees this kind of imputative interpretation as alien to the theology of Paul. In the imputative emphasis of Reformation theology, Pannenberg sees Augustine’s question about the “justification of the ungodly” and about faith as receiver of the righteousness of Christ, not as object of the liberating judgment of God. In the history of theology, the background to the underlining of liberating judgment is the book Cur Deus Homo (1098) by Anselm of Canterbury and the concept
41 Pannenberg 1993, 262-263.
42 Pannenberg 1993, 263-264.
43 Pannenberg 1993, 264-265.
44 Pannenberg 2000 b, 8-9.
of imputing the merit of Christ to the sinner. Declaring as just is thus not based so much on faith as on the merit of Christ.45
Here is a clear difference from Jüngel, who emphasizes the “justification of the ungodly” and criticizes Pannenberg for “justification of the believer”, which obscures the fact that justification happens “through faith”.
Pannenberg is confident that, while the basis of Paul’s theology is God’s faithfulness to his covenant and his sending of Christ to die, the declaration as just is based on faith. The article in the Augsburg Confession, propter Christum per fidem (CA 4), comes close to this thought of St. Paul. Even later on, the Apology says: iusti reputemur, cum credimus. As Pannenberg sees it, Melanchthon represented a view of the imputation of righteousness which was alien to Luther, according to whom faith means really partaking in the righteousness of Christ. Pannenberg sees the roots of Luther’s “mystical” concept of faith in the thought of Augustine. On the basis of Luther’s concept of faith, God declares the believer just and imputes to him or her the righteousness of Christ and, conversely, does not impute sin to a baptized and believing Christian. Pannenberg refers especially to the merits of Tuomo Mannermaa and the Finnish Luther-research in bringing this thought out into the open:46
This has been made anew publicly known during the last decades before all by the Finnish Luther research under the lead of Tuomo Mannermaa. Mannermaa finds support for this especially in the ideas of Luther in his major commentary on Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians in 1535. Similar statements can be found already in Luther’s lectures on Galatians 1516/1517. There it is said that the one who believes in Christ becomes one with Christ through faith (per fidem efficiatur unum cum Christo). … The imputation of Christ’s righteousness or the nonimputation of sin is based on the real partaking in Christ and his righteousness through faith.
45 Pannenberg 2000 b, 9-11.
46 Pannenberg and Mannermaa have been criticised by Mattes 2004, 68-69 who strictly sticks to the protestant forensic doctrine of justification and refers in his argumentation to the Luther interpretation of Werner Elert, influence by the Neo-Kantian tradition, that justification is a ”mathematical point”. Mattes is worried about the activeness of human beings coram deo and regards the ”real-ontic”, Luther interpretation of “new Finns” as divinization of nature and equates this position with the thought of Thomas Aquinas. The picture Mattes gives of Finnish Luther research is not correct. This is obvious when he himself raises, in the course of his criticism, only the main thoughts of Finnish Luther research as a description of his own position, although with slightly different wording: “Christ himself as donum is the matter, substance, or content of the Christian life, and love is what Christ produces through us (as good fruit from a good tree). We 'participate' in Christ in that he appropriates our sin, and we through faith appropriate his righteousness.” Mattes’ view differs in its fundamental thoughts from Finnish Luther research in that he accepts only the total aspect in justification, not the partim-partim aspect according to which the real presence of Christ and his righteousness in a believer would clean away sin, so that he would on the one side be through faith totally justified, but the righteousness of God in Christ would as a gift be only partially present in his Christian life. A Christian is passive in relation to the first righteousness but in relation to the second righteousness, his own righteousness, active. However, the basis for the second righteousness is always in the first. Co-operation means that the righteousness given by God in Christ really changes him. See in detail Peura 1990, 243-258.
… Through the ecstatic union with Christ in the act of faith is Christ correspondingly present in us, as Luther in thesis 26 of the Heidelberg disputation said.47
According to Pannenberg, alongside the Commentary on Galatians, Luther’s book Über die Freiheit eines Christenmenschen (1520) also refers to the real participation in Christ by faith and to its fundamental meaning for the doctrine of justification. Luther retained this emphasis in his later works, although he, like Melanchthon, could speak about justification as imputation of righteousness and non-imputation of sin.48
Pannenberg suspects that Melanchthon’s forensic interpretation and its probable consequence that justification does not change a person lead not only to the Catholic but also to the pietistic criticism. So since Philipp Jacob Spener, “conversion faith” was seen as the basis of justification. Especially Albrecht Ritschl systematized the forensic interpretation of the doctrine of justification and saw that pietism made a mistake when it regarded the analytical estimation of the ethical meaning as a synthetic reality. Although both Karl Holl and Karl Barth criticized Ritschl, they also represented a forensic-imputative understanding of justification. Pannenberg also considers Eberhard Jüngel to continue in this tradition when he states that the “justification of the ungodly is the center of the Christian faith”.49
Pannenberg analyzes that, unlike Barth, Jüngel did not tie justification to Christology but to the gospel as God’s creative word. He considers Jüngel’s criticism towards him (Jüngel 1998, 179, note 142), according to which “justification of the believer” falls in the light of Romans 4:17, to be untenable. In Pannenberg’s view, that verse does not speak of God’s judgment of justification but of the promise Abraham receives, and the verse should be interpreted in light of that concept. So Pannenberg states critically that, in Jüngel’s conception, in which the “imputation of a sinner as just as such is the effective act of the justification of the ungodly”, what remains open is how a person’s self-understanding and relationship to the other changes in the act.50
47 Pannenberg 2000b, 12: „Das ist in den letzten Jahrzehnten vor allem durch die finnische Lutherforschung im Gefolge von Tuomo Mannermaa neu zu Bewußtsein gebracht worden. Mannermaa stützte sich dabei vor allem auf Luthers Ausführungen in seinem großen Kommentar von 1535 zum paulinischen Galaterbrief. Entsprechende Aussagen finden sich jedoch schon in der Vorlesung Luthers über den Galaterbrief 1516/1517. Da heißt es, der an Christus Glaubende werde durch den Glauben eins mit Christus (per fidem efficiatur unum cum Christo). … Die Imputation der Gerechtigkeit Christi bzw. die Nichtimputation der Sünde gründet also auf der realen Teilhabe an Christus und seiner Gerechtigkeit durch den Glauben. … Durch diese ekstatische Vereinigung mit Christus im Akt des Glaubens ist dann auch umgekehrt Christus in uns, wie Luther 1518 in These 26 seiner Heidelberger Disputation sagte.“ Pannenberg refers especially to Mannermaa’s book Der im Glauben gegenwärtige Christus (Christ Present in Faith). See also Pannenberg 1993, 242, note 368. Also Kärkkäinen 2009, 10-11 refers to thenew paradigm of Luther research that the Mannermaa school has raised up and sees that it might have “a major influence on the future of the Christian ecumenical movement.” Although Kärkkäinen himself also presents criticism towards this interpretation of Luther, he estimates that it has fundamentally energized the discussion on the ecumenical field.
48 Pannenberg 2000b, 13.
49 Pannenberg 2000b, 13-15.
50 Pannenberg 2000b, 15.
On Pannenberg’s interpretation, there is no single Reformation doctrine of justification. Luther and CA 4 are perhaps closest to the apostle Paul’s understanding of faith as the object of the judgment of justification. Both the forensic-imputative model and the pietistic emphasis on conversion differ more from the understanding of the apostle. Pannenberg assumes that an understanding of faith as justifying is also the core of JDDJ. The consensus is a consensus on the basic truths of justification on the basis of the Pauline core. In Paul’s thought, what is primary is not the making just, because the imputation of a believer as just already presupposes the renewal of a believer through faith and baptism. However, Pannenberg recommends that one be tolerant toward different kinds of understandings of justification, because it is, after all, a work of God that he declares just the one who believes in the saving work of Jesus Christ.51
3. The Ecumenical Significance of the “Protestant” and “Catholic” Thought Models Coming Closer to Each Other
For example Professor Risto Saarinen from the University of Helsinki has suggested that one strong background factor behind the protest of German Protestant academic theology against the JDDJ was the anti-Catholic nature of these schools. Many 20th century models of German Protestant theology presuppose a fundamental difference between a Protestant and Roman Catholic thought model. The JDDJ is seen to be dangerous because it does not commit itself to this fundamental difference.52
In 20th century theology, behind the idea that there is a basic difference between the Protestant and Roman Catholic ways of thinking is the conviction that Immanuel Kant would be the “philosopher of Protestantism”. In the background is the thought that Kant’s “Copernican revolution” - toward the subject and the metaphysics of the subject – gave the right to leave behind the old metaphysical model of thought and to distinguish between the “thing in itself” and the “thing for us”. The neoKantian distinction between person and nature was based on Kantian dualism and formed the basis for the thought that Protestant thought is “personal” and Catholic thought “ontological”. Justification by faith could, according to this, be understood only according to the “personal” model of thought.53
Wolfhart Pannenberg has also referred to this “exclusion from Rome” as essential to the building of a Protestant identity. The significance of this juxtaposition was thought to fade away after the Second Vatican Council, but the professor protest of the year 1998 showed that it was alive and well.54 Professor Eeva Martikainen from the University of Helsinki estimated that Pannenberg has, for his part, supported the kind of development which reinstated the doctrine of the Trinity as the
51 Pannenberg 2000b, 15-17.
52 Saarinen 2000, 134. Saarinen observes that those Lutheran theologians who represent a strong sacramental way of thinking, like Wolfhart Pannenberg, Gunther Wenz and Ulrich Kühn, usually also defended the JDDJ in public.
53 On the philosophical-theological presuppositions of the ethical-actualistic hermeneutical tradition see Mannermaa 1989, 189-192; Saarinen 1989; Peura 1990, 9-21 and Martikainen 1987 and 1999.
54 Pannenberg 2000a, 295.
fundamental basis of modern Lutheran theology. It also means that there is a significant alternative to the neo-Protestant tradition for interpreting Lutheran theology for today.55
The deconstruction of the opposition between theological thought traditions as well as the exegetical, systematic theological and historical reconstruction of the foundation has significant ecumenical consequences. JDDJ already showed this. The same can be said about the convergence found earlier between the Lutheran understanding of justification and the Orthodox doctrine of deification on the basis of ecumenically oriented systematic theological research. The strengthening of understanding regarding the link between the doctrine of the Trinity and fellowship of being with Christ seems also to have been a fruitful way to proceed for instance in the Lutheran-Methodist and Lutheran-Pentecostal dialogue. The reason for this is the stronger position which is given to pneumatology than before.56 Important from the point of view of the whole ecumenical field is that fellowship with Christ as the basis for salvation and Christian life is also exegetically well argued and eases the tension between the epistles of St. Paul and St. James and brings important convergence to the understanding of the theologies of St. Paul, St. John and the rest of the Gospels. In this way, the gospel about salvation in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is brought into light from different angles.
The JDDJ as a bridge-builder also challenges the early version of the LWF ecumenical model of unity in reconciled diversity and especially the method in the Leuenberg concordConcord. Namely, the Leuenberg method was essentially based on the forensic interpretation of justification.57 Instead of talking about “reconciled diversity”, the current discussions of the LWF favor the term “differentiated consensus” as a methodological tool which is seen to have reached its most important goal in the JDDJ. The Roman Catholic discussion has used the expression “convergence in essential elements”. In the newer German discussion, it has been regarded as problematic that the essential distinction in the Leuenberg Agreement between “foundation” (Gestalt) and “form” (Gestalt) raises the question of how justification is concretely mediated and how it manifests itself in the visible structures of ministry and in other structures of the church. The unclear position in this disturbs the dialogue of the inner Protestant fellowship with other confessions.58
The advantage of Pannenberg’s solution compared with that of Jüngel seems to be its broader basis in the New Testament and – through this – wider ecumenical openness towards different models of
55 Martikainen 1999, 156.
56 The ecumenical potential of the ecumenical Luther research of Tuomo Mannermaa and his school has been underlined, for instance, by professor Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen from Fuller University.
57 Martikainen 1999, 155 points out that, especially in the discussions which led to the Leuenberg Agreement, it was essential to point out that the forensic doctrine of justification is the Lutheran doctrine of justification. This interpretation of justification was also characteristic of the LWF’s so called model of “reconciled diversity”, which has been described in the research work of Marjatta Laitinen 1995. Compare with Vainio 2004, 268: “Especially the traditional theses, according to which the Lutherans teach about forensic justification and the Catholic’s effectively is simply reductionist and misleading.” (Translation TK).
58 So for example Haudel 2006, 590, who refers also to the criticism stated by R. Frieling and G. Wenz.
salvation – from Orthodox to Pentecostal.59 Pannenberg (and, in part, Jungel) seems to have high esteem for the findings of Tuomo Mannermaa and, through this, for other findings of Finnish Luther research. That is the case in spite of the fact that he does not argue for the in nobis-aspect of union with Christ through the thought of the “real ontic” presence of Christ but “ecstatic relationally”. That is, a believer’s “ecstatic being in Christ” builds the basis for the presence of Christ in the believer. This is most obvious in the sacrament of baptism. However, we may conclude that in the same way that “Christ present in faith” is, for Luther, the basis of salvation, for Pannenberg the “justification of a believer” means justification of a believer “being in Christ”. Pannenberg seems to have the intention to distance himself from the traditional dogmatic language when it, in his view, obscures St. Paul’s thought about fellowship with Christ as the basis of justification and of salvation more generally. The emphasis on fellowship with Christ and ecstatic participation also implies that Pannenberg understands the doctrines of the Trinity and Christology together to form both the basis and the consequence of the doctrine of justification.
59 Kärkkäinen 2009, 21 regards it as a clear benefit in Pannenberg’s doctrine of salvation that it has expressed that the doctrine of salvation needs not only a Christological but also a pneumatological basis. No doubt, this opens doors also towards the Pentecostal way to interpret Christianity.
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