the parousia in modern theology: some questions ... - Tyndale House

THE PAROUSIA IN MODERN THEOLOGY 49
This approach is not to be dismissed merely on the grounds
that it reflects the influence of Hegel. Pannenberg owes much
to Hegel, and insists, "Hardly any of the great thinkers of the
modern age have done as much as Hegel to set the Christian
religion back upon the throne from which the Enlightenment
had removed it." 77 Pannenberg stands in the philosophical
tradition that goes back to Hegel through Bloch, Marx and
Feuerbach, in contrast to the Bultmannian individualism
which goes back through Heidegger to Kierkegaard. Moltmann,
similarly, explicitly repudiates the individualistic perspective
of Bultmann's hermeneutic in his significant essay "The
Revelation of God and the Question of Truth". The difficulty
of Bultmann's approach, Moltmann argues, is that "the whole
of reality in terms of its most comprehensive horizon is no
longer understood as cosmos or history, but rather in terms
of man, who, as subject, makes himself into its mid-point". 78
Moltmann insists, however, that we cannot arrive at truth from
a purely man-centred perspective, but only in the light of
history as a whole, which embraces the future. "It is only
from its End that the total reality of the world will be
complete". 79
Nevertheless, how can we know this future until it becomes
present and therefore no longer future? Pannenberg declares
that "the answer lies in the proleptic character of the Christ
event." 80 The resurrection of Christ points forward in an anti-
cipatory way to "the eschatological event which binds history
into a whole". 81 Thus it would not be true to say that Pannen-
berg stresses the parousia at the expense of the resurrection.
Christ gives a proleptic and provisional view of the end. This
is part of what is meant by a doctrine of revelation: the
future is provisionally disclosed in advance. The apocalyptic
setting of the resurrection hope makes this more meaningful.
For it shows that, on the one hand, the resurrection is one of
the last events of the end time; and on the other hand, that
77
Ibid. 159.
78
J. Moltmann, Hope and Planning ET, S.C.M. London (1971) 8.
19 W. Pannenberg, "The Revelation of God in Jesus of Nazareth" in J. M.
Robinson and J. B. Cobb (eds.) New Frontiers in Theology: III, Theology as
History, Harper & Row, New York (1967) 132.
80
W. Pannenberg, Basic Questions in Theology vol. 2, ET, S.C.M. London
(1971) 24.
81
W. Pannenberg, "'The Revelation of God in Jesus of Nazareth" loc. cit.
122.