Theology In The Age Of Scientific Reasoning

Nancey Murphy download

https://ebookbell.com/product/theology-in-the-age-of-scientific-
reasoning-nancey-murphy-51939432

Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com

Here are some recommended products that we believe you will be
interested in. You can click the link to download.

Theology In The Age Of Global Aids Hiv Complicity And Possibility 1st
Edition Cassie J E H Trentaz Auth

https://ebookbell.com/product/theology-in-the-age-of-global-aids-hiv-
complicity-and-possibility-1st-edition-cassie-j-e-h-trentaz-
auth-5374924

Christian Theology In The Age Of Migration Implications For World

Christianity Peter C Phan

https://ebookbell.com/product/christian-theology-in-the-age-of-
migration-implications-for-world-christianity-peter-c-phan-28161908

Doing Theology In The Age Of Trump A Critical Report On Christian

Nationalism Westar Seminar On God And The Human Future Book 0 Jeffrey
W Robbins Editor

https://ebookbell.com/product/doing-theology-in-the-age-of-trump-a-
critical-report-on-christian-nationalism-westar-seminar-on-god-and-
the-human-future-book-0-jeffrey-w-robbins-editor-48597352

The Spirit Of French Capitalism Economic Theology In The Age Of

Enlightenment Charly Coleman

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-spirit-of-french-capitalism-
economic-theology-in-the-age-of-enlightenment-charly-coleman-51932280
The Spirit Of French Capitalism Economic Theology In The Age Of
Enlightenment Charly Coleman

https://ebookbell.com/product/the-spirit-of-french-capitalism-
economic-theology-in-the-age-of-enlightenment-charly-coleman-33129250

Theology In America Christian Thought From The Age Of The Puritans To

The Civil War E Brooks Holifield

https://ebookbell.com/product/theology-in-america-christian-thought-
from-the-age-of-the-puritans-to-the-civil-war-e-brooks-
holifield-50353560

Theology In America Christian Thought From The Age Of The Puritans To

The Civil War Professor E Brooks Holifield

https://ebookbell.com/product/theology-in-america-christian-thought-
from-the-age-of-the-puritans-to-the-civil-war-professor-e-brooks-
holifield-2130362

Theology In America Christian Thought From The Age Of The Puritans To

The Civil War E Brooks Holifield

https://ebookbell.com/product/theology-in-america-christian-thought-
from-the-age-of-the-puritans-to-the-civil-war-e-brooks-
holifield-1494030

Live Long And Prosper How Black Megachurches Address Hivaids And
Poverty In The Age Of Prosperity Theology Sandra L Barnes

https://ebookbell.com/product/live-long-and-prosper-how-black-
megachurches-address-hivaids-and-poverty-in-the-age-of-prosperity-
theology-sandra-l-barnes-51899864
 Theology in the Age
of Scientific Reasoning
Cornell Studies in the Philosophy of Religion
EDITED BY WILLIAM P. ALSTON

God, Time, and Knowledge

by William Hasker
On a Complex Theory of a Simple God: An Investigation in Aquinas'
Philosophical Theology
by Christopher Hughes
Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning
by Nancey Murphy
The Nature of God: An Inquiry into Divine Attributes
by Edward R. Wierenga
 Nancey Murphy

Theology in the Age

of Scientific Reasoning

Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London

Copyright © 1990 by Cornell University

All right> reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or
parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in
writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University
Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 1990 by Cornell University Press

First printing, Cornell Paperbacks, 1993

Library if' Congress Catalogiltg-ill-Publication Data

Murphy, Nancey C.
Theology in the age of scientific reasoning I Nancey Murphy.
p. em. - (Cornell studies in the philosophy of religion)
ISBN-I 3: 978-o-8014-8 I 14-7 (pbk. : alk. paper)
I. Theology-Methodology, 2. Religion and science-1946-
I. Title. II. Series.
BR1r8.M88 1990
23o'.or-de2o 8()-39375

Printed in the United States of America

Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers

and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publishing of its books. Such
materials include vegetable-based, low-VOC inks and acid-free papers that are
recycled, totally chlorine-free, or partly composed of nonwood fibers.
For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

Paperback printing 10 9 H 7 6
 to
James William McClendon, Jr.
 Contents

Preface Xl

r. The Problem-Theological Method in the Age of

Probable Reasoning
Theology and the Flight from Authority 2
1.1 Epistemology from Descartes to Quine 3
1 .2 Theism after Authority 9
1.3 Theology after Hume 12
2 Meeting Hume's Challenge-A Strategy 16

2. The Quest for Theological Method-Pannenberg 19

versus Hume
Pannenberg's Theory of Revelation 20
2 Pannenberg's Theological Method 22
2.1 The Role of Scripture in Theology 23
2.2 Confirming the Christian Tradition vis-a-vis All Known
Reality 25
3 Pannenbcrg's Scientific Theology 30
4 The Hume-Pannenberg Debate 34
4.1 Hume 34
4.2 Conflict 39
4·3 Defeat for Pannenberg 43
4·3·1 Hume and Pannenberg: Incommensurable 43
4·3·2 Pannenberg's Methodology: Unworkable 48
Vlll Contents

3. Probable Reasoning Come of Age-Philosophy of 51

Science
Historical Background 52
2 lmre Lakatos and the Methodology of Scientific
Research Programs 58
3 Evaluation of Lakatos's Methodology 61
3.1 Scientific Methodology as a Theory of the History of
Science 61
3.2 Criticisms 65
3.2.1 Wlwt Are Novel Facts? 66
J.Z .z Methodology versus Historiography of Science 69
J.Z.J Feyerabend's Critique 73
3·3 Competition for Lakatos's Methodology 74
4 Consequences for Theology 79
4.1 Logical Positivism 79
4.2 Falsificationism 8o
4·3 Other Ncopositivists 82
4·4 Historicist Philosophers of Science 84
4·5 Conclusions 85
4.5.1 Demarcation in Question 85
4.5.2 Theology as a Science 86

4· The Modernists-Testing the Method 88

The Catholic Modernists 89
2 The Modernist Research Program 92
2.1 The Hard Core 92
2.2 The Auxiliary Hypotheses 94
3 Alfred Loisy 95
4 George Tyrrell 96
4.1 Tyrrell's Hard Core: The Defense of Catholicism 97
4.2 Tyrrell's Auxiliary Hypotheses 98
4.2.1 Distinctives of "Genuine Catholicism" 98
4.2.2 Empirical Method and the Truth of Catholicism 100
4.2.] Experimental Confirmation ofthe Catholic
Faith 104
4.2.4 Doctrine, Revelation, Theology, and Truth 106
4.2.5 Relation to Biblical Criticism and Critical Church
History 108
4.2.6 A New Doctrine of Revelation 112
 Contents IX

4.2.7 A New Understanding of the Nature of

Doctrine 113
4.2.8 Genuine Catholicism, Concluded 115
4·3 The Role of Tyrrell's Models in the Modernist
Program 116
5 Ernesto Buonaiuti 118
6 Evaluation of the Modernist Program 120
6.1 Had the Modernist Program a Positive Heuristic? 121
6.2 Was the Modemist Program Empirically Progressive? 123
7 Conclusions 126

5. Data for Theology 130

r Jonathan Edwards 133

1.1 Edwards's Observations 134
1.2 Criteria for judging Rel(t?ious Experience 136
1.2.1 Criteria for Recognition of the Saints 136
1.2.2 Distinguishing Marks of a Work of the Spirit of
God 139
2 Ignatius of Loyola 141
2.1 Rules for Discernment of Spirits 142
2.2 Edwards and Ignatius-Substantial Acf?reement 144
3 Judgment in the Anabaptist Tradition 145
3.1 Pi(f?ram Marpeck's Criteria for judging Teachers 148
3.2 A Complement to Edwards and Ignatius 149
4 Judgment in the Early Church 150
5 Contemporary Forms of Christian Judgment 152
6 Theological Data: A Proposal 157
6.1 Christian Epistemic Practices 159
6.2 Theory-laden Data 163
6.3 The Objectivity of Theological Data 165
6.4 Novelty versus Replicability 167
7 Scripture as Data for Theology 168
8 Conclusion 172

6. Scientific Theology 174

Scientific Doctrinal Theology 175
1 .1 Pmmenberg's Theology as a Research Program 176
1.2 The Lundensian Program 178
X ] Contents

1.3 Lakatosian Theology 183

1.3.1 The Hard Core 184
1.3.2 The Negative Heuristic 184
1.J.J The Positive Heuristic 185
1.3.4 Auxiliary Hypotheses 186
1.3.5 Data 188
1.3.6 Relating Theory and Data 189
2 Lakatosian Theology and Philosophy of Religion 192
2.1 The Evidentialist Debate in Philosophy of Religion 192
2.2 Theistic Belief and Theology 196
2.3 Science and Lakatosian Theolo.u 197
3 Postmodern Philosophical Theology 199
3.1 Modern Thought 200
3.2 Postmodern Theology 201
4 Retrospect: Hume and Stout Revisited 208

Index 213
 Preface

The best way to introduce this book may be to explain how I came
to write it. The seed was planted during my years of graduate work
at the University of California, Berkeley, where I had gone to study
philosophy of science with Paul Feyerabend. Incidentally I learned
there, for the first time, that Christian belief had fallen on hard times
among the intelligentsia-a big surprise to a Nebraska ranch kid just
emerged from the Catholic school system. It wasn't long before the
question of the status of religious knowledge came to seem to me
both more interesting and more pressing than that of scientific
knowledge. The philosopher of science must answer the question
"In what does the rationality of science consist?" Few besides my
teacher Feyerabcnd would question whether science is rational. The
philosopher of religion, on the other hand, must in these days pro-
vide an apologia for the very possibility of religious knowledge.
Philosophy of science has made great strides in this generation by
careful study of science itself-as opposed to arm-chair investigation
of the 'logic' of science. It seemed to me, therefore, that philosophers
of religion needed an equally thorough knowledge of the cognitive
aspects of religion. Thus upon completion of my work at Berkeley I
immediately undertook a second doctorate, in theology, at the near-
by Graduate Theological Union, where I concentrated on the history
of theology and philosophy of religion.
During that time, the present volume began to take shape. I saw
that Scripture, history, and the church's ongoing encounters with
Xll Preface

God in community life and worship could be the data for a scientific
theology. Theology itself(doctrine) could be accounted theories in a
theological "research program." The analysis of the relations be-
tween data and theory, and criteria for acceptance of theories, would
come from the philosophy of science of the late Imre Lakatos.
Lakatos put forward a revised version of a Kantian motto:

Philosophy of science without history of science is empty; history of

science without philosophy of science is blind.

propose a motto that expresses a similar attitude regarding the

relation between philosophy of religion and religion's content:

Philosophy of religion without theology is empty; theology without

philosophy of religion is blind.

Although this book is published in a philosophy of religion series, the

reader will see that it is by no means empty of theology. I apologize
to any theological readers who may find my recounting of the his-
tory tedious. Lakatos himself has been much criticized for failure to
take history seriously enough.
The list of those to whom I am indebted has grown along with the
book. First, I express my gratitude to Paul Feyerabend. I hope some
day to emulate his thorough and creative scholarship.
I also thank the following friends and acquaintances who have read
and commented on my manuscript or helped me with the project in
other ways: William Alston, editor of this series, Ian Barbour, Don-
ald Gelpi, Michael Goldberg, Philip Hefner, Gonzalo Munevar,
Wolfhart Pannenberg, Arthur Peacocke, Ted Peters, Robert Russell,
Kay Scheuer, senior manuscript editor at Cornell University Press,
David Schultenover, Terrence Tilley, and Claude Welch.
My deepest gratitude goes to James William McClendon, Jr., who
has advised and taught and encouraged me during my theological
studies; who has read my manuscript several times, providing help-
ful comments and challenging criticisms; and above all, as my hus-
band, has provided much needed support in many ways. It is to him
that I dedicate this book.

NANCEY MURPHY

Kensington, California
 Theology in the Age
of Scientific Reasoning
 (I )
The Problem-Theological
Method in the Age of
Probable Reasoning
At the beginning of the nineteenth century the theological
problem was, simply, "How is theology possible?" This was
a question of both rationale and method, and included, at
least implicitly, the question whether theology is possible at
all. Of course, this had been a question in every age, but now
it emerged with new strength and in a special configuration
provided by the eighteenth century. The theologies of
orthodoxy were still present, but fundamentally they were
fighting rearguard actions as they retreated steadily before the
forces of Enlightenment into the backwaters of intellectual
and cultural isolation.
-CLAUDE WELCH, Protestant ThouJtht in the Ninetee11th
Century, vol. r

Friedrich Schleiermacher addressed his Speeches 1 to readers of Im-

manuel Kant. Today's cultured despisers of religion, however, are
more likely to trace their lineage to David Hume-Kant having been
'refuted' by the discovery of non-Euclidean geometries and the re-
placement of Newtonian physics by relativity theory. Many theolo-
gians since Schleiermacher have been careful to take Kant into ac-
count, either by accepting his judgment regarding the limitations of
theological knowledge (nineteenth-century liberals) or by turning
his methods to their own purposes (early twentieth-century Lunden-
sians, contemporary neo-Thomists). Yet, since Hume's sparring

I. 011 Religio11: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers, trans. John Oman from 3d ed.,
1821 (New York: Harper and Row, 1958). First published in 1799.
2 ] Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning

partners died off, theologians have scarcely given him a thought,

while the standard account among secular philosophers takes tor
granted his accomplishment-to have firmly barred the door to
rational support of theism. 2
Theologians' neglect ofHume may seem surprising, but perhaps it
was just as well because, I shall argue, it is only with the epistemolog-
ical resources of the past two decades that Hume's challenge can be
met. This chapter will explore the demands Hume's arguments place
on theology; the remainder of the book will show how these de-
mands can be met with the resources of recent philosophy of science.

I. Theology and the Flight from Authority

There is wide consensus among philosophers today regarding the

difference made to theological rationality by the Enlightenment,
especially as incarnate in David Hume. 3 A survey of current philoso-
phy of religion and its assessment of Hume's contribution would
take another book. Fortunately, there appeared in 1981 a clear, his-
torically cogent, philosophically and theologically sensitive work by
Jeffrey Stout. Although some will disagree with Stout in detail, his
Flight from Authority well represents prevalent views on Hume and

2. For example, I quote Wallace Matson's New History of Philosophy, vol. 2

(Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1987), p. 366: "Hume set out in his
Dialogues not to demolish 'religion' altogether, but to accomplish a definite and
limited task: to show that the inference from the alleged design in nature to an
infinitely wise, powerful, and good Author of nature is invalid. He achieved his goal.
It is true that William Paley (1743-1805), a generation after Hume, stated the design
argument in its most popular form-the watch discovered on the desert island-and
that in the years from I 833 to 1840 eight eminent British men of science published
books under the auspices of the Royal Society expatiating on design in nature, for
which service each scientist received a thousand pounds from the estate of the eighth
Earl of Bridgewater. And versions of the argument arc still found from time to time
in The Reader's Digest. Nevertheless, few philosophers or even theologians in the past
century have defended it. Hume was not the sole cause of the collapse; Darwin, in
providing an alternative hypothesis to explain the curious adaptation of means to
ends in nature, had enormous psychological effect. But for all that, Hume can be
credited with what is rare in philosophy: a definitive refutation."
3· Antony Flew and Kai Nielsen represent mainline atheism in Britain and North
America respectively. See, for example, Flew's Presumption of Atheism (New York:
Harper and Row, 1976), p. 34; and Nielsen's Philosophy m1d Atheism (Buffalo, N.Y.:
Prometheus Books, 1985), p. 18.
 The Problem 3

religion. 4 Therefore I propose to review this history as seen through

Stout's eyes in the confidence that so doing will fairly represent
theology's position today in rational discussion in our culture. Yet, if
Stout's is the first word it will not be the last. Stout's updated
Humeanism represents the challenge to be met in the remainder of
this volume.
Stout first traces epistemological changes through the modern
period (in philosophy, roughly, from I650 to 1950), then shows their
consequences for theology and ethics. In a preliminary way we may
note that there have been two turning points in epistemology: The
first was the rejection of the medieval concepts of knowledge based
upon study of the authorities and deductive reasoning in favor of the
modern period's foundationalism-that is, the concern with the
reconstruction of knowledge on self-evident foundations (whether
intuitionist or empirical). The second turn (still in progress) is the
substitution of a holist approach for that very foundationalist doc-
trine-the holists having come to recognize that no sharp distinction
can be drawn between one part of knowledge considered basic and
some other part constructed upon it.
In effect, Stout argues that abandonment of the understanding of
knowledge as legitimated by authority destroyed the rational cred-
ibility of theism. He sees the mainstream of theology since Hume as
an assortment of unsuccessful strategies to protect theology against
the consequences of this intellectual catastrophe. While criticizing
theologians who argue that theology is, for one reason or another,
immune from modern and contemporary rational standards, he is at
the same time pessimistic about theism's prospects for support by
these same standards of "probable reasoning."

I. I Epistemology from Descartes to Quine

So two major epistemological changes separate us from Descartes:
one was a change in available epistemic vocabulary that occurred
shortly after Descartes's death; the other was the devastating crit-
icism, 2 so years later, of the foundationalist epistemological tradition
that Descartes had initiated. There were two sets of epistemic vocab-
ulary available to Descartes as a legacy from the Middle Ages and,

4· Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981.

4 Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning

before that, from Aristotle. One set related to 'scientia' and had to do
with demonstrative reasoning and certainty. The second set of terms
was related to 'opinio,' which refered to all that falls short of demon-
strative reasoning. Opinions must be judged more or less probable,
and probability depends upon approbation of the proposition by the
authorities, and in turn upon the probity of the authorities themselves.
Improbable though it may seem to us today, full-fledged notions
of probable reasoning based on internal evidence came into European
thought only in the second half of the seventeenth century-just after
Descartes's death. 5 Lack of this modern notion of probability ex-
plains why Descartes took the option he did in responding to the
skeptical crisis of his day. The crisis consisted in the simultaneous
erosion of both of the epistemic categories available to him-both
scientia and opinio. Trouble with scientia had begun in the late medi-
eval period. The voluntarists' elevation of divine omnipotence and
freedom threatened to narrow scientia to triviality: What could be
deduced about the natural order if God could intervene to change it at
any time? The only consequences one could rely on, it seemed, were
those of the law of noncontradiction. Furthermore, the dissemina-
tion of ancient skeptical writings in the sixteenth and early seven-
teenth centuries gave rise to increasingly radical (modern) forms of
skepticism.
Just as doubts about scientia placed a greater burden on opinio, the
multiplication of authorities that occurred in conjunction with the
Reformation made resort to authority an increasingly ineffective
means for settling disputes. Descartes had three options. He could
accept radical skepticism, or he could attempt to restore either scientia
or opinio. He chose to attempt the restoration of scientia. His project,
therefore, was to defend against skepticism by accepting in the be-
ginning only those clear and distinct ideas that he could not doubt,
and then to reconstruct all knowledge from them by means of deduc-
tion.
In years since, Descartes's intuitionism has been rejected-what is
clear and distinct to one person is usually not clear and distinct to
another in a different intellectual milieu. His reliance on demonstra-

5· Stout follows Ian Hacking's Emergence of Probability (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1975). Another, perhaps complementary, account of the rise of
empiricism involves the mathematization of science, with recognition only in our
century that mathematical relations do not, strictly speaking, allow one to deduce
conclusions about the natural world.
 The Problem 5

tion as the sole means of reasoning has also been abandoned as an

impossible ideal, and later foundationalists have even been content
with less-than-certain foundations. But what was not given up until
the twentieth century was the foundationalist metaphor and the
supposition that the only way to justify knowledge is to show that it
is based on unproblematic foundations. More on foundationalism
later.
Stout's explanation of the transition from medieval to modern
epistemology is interesting enough to be worth summarizing here.
Among the Jansenists at Port-Royal in the latter half of the seven-
teenth century there occurred a transformation in the sense of 'prob-
able' (Latin: probabilis) from that of approbation by authority to that
of the proportioning of one's belief to the weight of the internal evi-
dence. The transformation happened more or less this way: If in the
Middle Ages authority sanctions all beliefs except those that can be
demonstrated from first principles, then surely the best authority one
could have is God himself. God, according to Augustine and many
who followed him, authored two books: the Bible and the Book of
Nature. If nature is indeed a book and God its author, just as he is the
author of the Bible, then events in nature, like linguistic expressions,
are signs. To study them is to decipher God's meaning. Here natural
observations do play a part in the determination ofbelief, but they do
so only because they are a kind of testimony and therefore fit into the
epistemic categories relating to authority. But soon, by means of the
arguments of the Port-Royal logicians, the 'testimony' of nature
came to have a new kind of status.
The Jansenist Blaise Pascal had already shown that the structure of
reasoning about games of chance could be transferred to inference
about other matters-recall "Pascal's wager." In Port-Royal's Logic,
or the Art of Thinking (r662), the authors adapted Pascal's frequency
calculations to create a "rule for the proper use of reason in determin-
ing when to accept human authority." This involved, among other
things, judging the acceptability of an authority's pronouncement on
a given matter on the basis offrequency of past reliability. Here we see
one of our modern senses of 'probability' intertwined with the
medieval sense. 6 Furthermore, if nature itself has testimony to give,

6. As will be apparent, my use of 'probable' in this book is intended to call to

mind a longer tradition than might be recognized by current probability theorists.
Inclusion (in Chapter 3) oflmre Lakatos, Thomas Kuhn, and others in the tradition of
6 Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning

then the testimony of a witness may be compared with the testimony

nature has given in the past. Thus one may distinguish between
internal and external facts pertaining to a witness's testimony to the
occurrence of an event: external facts have to do with the witness's
personal characteristics; internal facts have to do with the character of
the event itself, that is, with the frequency of events of that sort.
Given the "problem of many authorities" created by the events of the
Reformation, the task increasingly became one of deciding which
authorities could be believed, and the new sense of probability-of
resorting to internal evidence-gradually came to predominate,
making external evidence, the testimony of witnesses, count as evi-
dence only at second remove. The transition from authority to inter-
nal evidence was complete.
So the followers of Descartes had at their disposal a new epistemic
vocabulary-and with it new ways of answering the question of
what it is rational to believe. The erosion of the ideal of sci entia from
that point on was no longer the catastrophe it had been for Descartes.
In this sense, Hume stands on the near side of a great divide that
separates us from Descartes-the invention of probable reasoning.
But in another sense, Hume is more a student of Descartes than is
often recognized when Descartes is considered the progenitor of
modern rationalism and Hume of modern empiricism-for Hume
continued Descartes's foundationalism, his only innovation being
acceptance of a kind of foundational beliefs different from Des-
cartes's clear and distinct intuitions.
The foundationalist argument may be summarized as follows:
When we ask for justification of a belief, a chain of reasons that
would constitute justification cannot be circular without begging the
question and must not result in an infinite regress. Therefore the
chain of reasons must at some point end in a 'foundation' needing no
further justification. In Descartes's day deductive reasoning could be

probable reasoning reflects my judgment that these are the rightful successors of the
ncopositivists, whereas confirmation theory, with its reliance on probability cal-
culus, is a dead end. I might instead have used the word 'empirical' but it has also been
used in a variety of ways, most of which arc too narrow for my purposes. I used the
term 'scientific reasoning' in the title, but the change from an epistemology based on
authority to one based on the proportioning of one's belief to the strength of the
evidence was a much broader cultural change than that which occurred within science
alone.
 The Problem 7

assumed to be the means of constructing the chain, once given the

foundation. But when the foundations came to be thought of as sense
experience, as already in Hume's day, the means of construction
became problematic. In fact, one way oflooking at Hume's famous
problem of induction is to see it as simply drawing attention to the
fact that because deduction only spells out consequences already
implicit in the premises, there can be no deductive argument from a
limited number of observations to a general conclusion. Yet nothing
but deduction could provide the certainty that seemed a necessary
condition for knowledge. Hume's solution was finally to accept the
necessity of proportioning one's belief to the strength of the evi-
dence. 7 Thus, in empiricist epistemology, both the nature of the
foundations and the method of construction differ from the corre-
sponding Cartesian elements, but the underlying assumption is the
same-namely, that it is the business of philosophy to examine the
justification of the putative knowledge claims of other disciplines by
attempting to derive them from immediately given foundations.
Foundationalism has had its critics in the past (nineteenth-century
Hegelians, for example), but since the middle of this century it has
become a center of controversy. In 1951 W. V. 0. Quine published
"Two Dogmas of Empiricism," in which he argued (to the satisfac-
tion of many) against the empiricists' doctrine of the analytic-syn-
thetic distinction, showing that it could not be drawn precisely
enough to make it useful, as well as against the dogma of reduction-
ism-the belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some
logical construct on terms that refer to immediate experience. 8 All at
once the distinction long maintained between science (a purely em-
pirical discipline founded firmly on sense experience) and philosophy
(analysis of the meanings of concepts) was blurred.
Unwilling to use the 'modern' picture he had thus demolished,
Quine suggested a model ofknowledge different from that of tradi-
tional empiricism. The older view had seen knowledge as a layer
cake. The bottom layer is sensory experience, which supports em-
pirical generalizations, topped off by theories. (In Chapter 3 we shall
see the steps by which this view of science was criticized and replaced
7· See An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge (Ox-
ford: Clarendon Press, 1902), sec. VI "On Probability," and sec. X "Of Miracles," p.
IIO.
8. Philosophical Review 40 (I95 I), 20-43.
8 Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning

by philosophers of science as well.) Quine's new model pictures a

belief system as a web or net. Beliefs that are most likely to be given
up in the face of recalcitrant experience arc located at the edges;
beliefs less subject to revision are nearer the center. These latter
beliefs are less subject to revision not only because they are further
from experience, but also because they are interconnected with more
elements in the rest of the system. When experience necessitates
some change in the system, there are usually many ways to revise,
including changing the meanings of some terms, revising theories,
or even, Quine hazards, revising logic. The decision among these
possibilities will in the end be pragmatic-how best to restore con-
sistency with the least disturbance to the system as a wholeY
This Quinian model ofknowledge, along with the epistemological
and linguistic theses that go with it, is commonly referred to as
holism. Holism rejects the distinction between analytic and synthetic
truths because meanings can always be adjusted to fit beliefs to
experience in preference to rejection of the beliefs. Holism denies that
there is some class of basic beliefs that can provide an unquestionable
court of appeal to settle disputes. Furthermore, it does away with the
long-lived distinction between fact and value. 10
Stout concludes in Part 1 of The Flight from Authority that once the
holist picture ofknowledge is accepted and the notion of meanings as
fixed entities rejected, the mid-twentieth-century understanding of
philosophy as conceptual analysis must change. Now the analysis of
concepts can only be the description ofhow they are in fact used, and
one will have to specify who uses them this way and when. Thus the
natural successor to philosophy as analysis is a nco-Hegelian under-
standing of philosophy as history-"conceptual archaeology," in
Stout's term. To find out what 'rational,' 'know,' 'justification'
mean, one must see how the terms are used. In fact they are used

9. W. V. 0. Quine and J. S. Ullian, The Web of Belief (New York: Random

House, 1979).
ro. Stout does not mean to claim, of course, that there are no more foundationalist
epistemologists, only that with the qualifications now needed to evade criticism,
there is no longer any point in holding a foundationalist view of knowledge. I agree
with Stout that the new holist picture of knowledge offers greater promise. For more
on holist epistemology and its relations to other disciplines, see Richard Rorty,
Philosophy and the Mirror ofNature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979); and
Richard J. Bernstein, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and
Praxis (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983).
 The Problem 9

differently in different milieus-we have already seen that Descartes

and his predecessors did not use 'scientia' in the way we now use
either 'science' or 'knowledge.' The historical events of the Reforma-
tion, the rise of science, Port-Royal, and other factors have all inter-
vened to change the way these words function in relation to one
another and to whatever else there is.

r. 2 Theism after Authority

Stout's account of the fate of theism after the flight from authority
is worth examining here, both for its analysis ofHume's pivotal role
and because it offers theologians a view of their craft through the eyes
of recent secular philosophers (at least of those who bother to think
about it at all). Part u of Flight traces the changing fortunes of theism
from Aquinas to Barth, showing the consequences for apologetics of
the epistemological changes described above. Stout explains that
although Aquinas and his contemporaries had good reason for ac-
cepting theism and, in fact, even for accepting "paradoxical" doc-
trines such as that of three persons in one God, these reasons, proba-
bly some time in the late seventeenth century, ceased to be good
ones. Much of the history of theology and philosophy of religion
since then can be read as attempts to come to terms with this fact.
Regarding Aquinas, Stout says:

I want now to reaffirm my claim that this reasoning justifies his

acceptance of the "supernatural mysteries" of faith. The crucial point
is that Aquinas accepted-and, unlike those who came several cen-
turies later, had no compelling reason to abandon-epistemic princi-
ples that made the "supernatural mysteries" seem highly credible. The
link between credibility and authority still firmly in place, Aquinas
could accept on authority even the most "paradoxical" beliefs without
violating any available norm of probable opinion. Authority makes
opinions as probable as they could be. Divine authority confers objec-
tive certainty. Even a doctrine the very coherence of which must be
taken on faith is perfectly acceptable by standards Aquinas had no
compellingly good reason to revise or reject. 11

Stout offers no opinion on the rationality of Descartes's theism,

and such a judgment may not be possible if Descartes stands at the

r r. Flight, p. r6S.
IO Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning

dividing line between two different 'paradigms' of rationality. Con-

temporary philosophers are fond of giving Descartes's theistic argu-
ments short shrift, but if we take seriously the historical nature of
rationality, such judgments may be anachronistic.
It is really the fate of theism after the Port-Royal Logic, and after
Descartes's death, that interests Stout. He describes deism as the
consequence of applying the new probable reasoning to religious
belief, distinguishing three stages of development seen most clearly
in Britain roughly from 1640 to Hume's death in 1776. In the first
stage, the argument from design was reformulated in such a way that
the order of the universe, its mechanical design, was taken as evidence
for a divine artisan. (Note the difference between this claim and that
of, say, Aquinas, for whom the purposiveness of agents in the world
is proof of a divine agent.) The concept of revelation was emphasized
in a new way, and miracles were taken as the means to relate revela-
tion to probable reasoning. Stout takes his example from the work of
John Locke.

For the most part, Locke works within the traditional distinction
between demonstrative knowledge and the sphere of mere belief or
opinion. The two grounds of assent short of the certainty of demon-
strative knowledge are revelation and probability. Revelation takes
precedence over probability in the sense that evident revelation re-
quires assent even when the content of such revelation runs against its
likeliness to be true. Reason is the guarantor of revelation in two
senses. First of all, no true revelation could contradict the absolutely
certain results of truly demonstrative knowledge. Second, reason
must determine whether the putative revelation in question is indeed
revelation, which must be done in accordance with probable reason-
ing. If it is probable that the putative revelation in question is the work
of God's hand, then the proposition commands our assent whether or
not its content expresses a probable truth. One mark of divine author-
ship, besides compatibility with what we already know and with what
has already been certified as revelation, is the attendant presence of
miraculous signs. Hence the importance of miracles for Locke. 12

In a second stage of post-Port-Royal development, deists such as

John Toland and Matthew Tindal raised the question: if all evidence
IS to be taken into account, as urged in Port-Royal's Lo,rsic, why

!2. Ibid., pp. I 15-!6.

 The Problem II

should not evidence for the content of putative revelation be taken into
account as well? In fact, questions of the likelihood of the very idea of
historical revelation were raised. Is it likely that a perfectly good God
would have left the human race without decisive guidance for so
long, only to grant the privilege finally to a small, isolated fraction of
it? Is not the appeal to the "mystery" of revelation only an admission
of the unintelligibility of the very idea? And even granting the inher-
ent possibility of revelation, how likely is it that such a thing has
actually taken place? Are there good grounds for believing in the
actual occurrence of the miraculous events constituting the indis-
pensable evidence for historical revelation? 13
The important thing to notice, says Stout, is that the deistic re-
sponse to the latitudinarian stress on revelation in effect unleashed
internal (empirical) evidence from the carefully delimited place
Locke had accorded it. Deism, in short, accepted only those tenets of
traditional theology that could be established independently as prob-
able hypotheses. In deism reason rendered revelation either improb-
able or redundant. t4
Hume's critique of deism constituted a final stage of readjustment.
First, he sharpened the deistic argument against using miracles to
warrant belief in revelation. Miracles are by definition violations of
the laws of nature. The laws of nature are established by uniform
experience. If it is uniform experience that warrants belief in the
probability of an event's occurrence, then belief in the violation of a
law of nature (a miracle) is just what is least likely ever to be sup-
ported by good reasons. This argument was coupled with a low
assessment of the credibility of the putative witnesses to miracles on
the basis of the Port-Royal Logic's criteria. Because the alleged wit-
nesses are not known to be numerous, intelligent, well educated,
evidently honest, in the position of having something to lose if the
account proves false, and operating publicly in a well-known part of

IJ. Cf. Hans Frei, The Eclipse of Biblical Narrative (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1974), pp. 52-53.
14. Ronald Thiemann describes Locke's attempt to maintain both that the content
of revelation is entirely in accord with reason and that revelation adds to the knowl-
edge of God provided by reason as requiring an "impossibly fine balance." See
Revelation and Theology (Notre Dame, Ind.: University ofNotre Dame Press, 1985),
pp. 17-24.
12 Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning

the world, we have especially good reason, Hume concluded, to

disbelieve their accounts. ts
Having thus intensified the deistic argument against revelation,
Hume turned to the remaining core of deism itself-the argument
from design. He pointed out that the hypothesis of an intelligent
designer is only one possible explanation of the origin of the world
and depends upon our first construing it as a machine or mechanism.
If on the other hand we construe it as more analogous to an organ-
ism, then it could instead be produced by propagation. Because the
hypothesis of an intelligent and morally good creator is not the only
possibility, the final verdict must take into account all the relevant
evidence, and the existence of evil in the world is prima facie strong
evidence against this traditional conception of the creator.)(,
Thus Hume represents a great divide separating us from tradi-
tional theism, for in his work the consequences of the new probable
reasoning were played out in theology. The burden of proof has
shifted. Theology from Hume's day to the present seeks to defend
itself not in the court of authority, but in the court of internal
evidence.

1. 3 Theology after Hume

The failure of theism to withstand the application of the new
probable reasoning seems to give theologians a choice between two
positions. Some accept Hume's critique as final and seek some other
'vindication' for religion and theology outside the cognitive domain.
Others ignore the crisis created by the epistemological changes that
ushered in modernity, and go on about their business as though
Hume had never written. 17 The latter sort, however, pay the price of
becoming intellectually isolated from and irrelevant to the host cul-
ture. Stout sees no third alternative. It is the thesis of the present

I 5. See "Of Miracles."

16. See Dialogues concerning Natural Religion in David Hume on Religion, ed. Richard
Wollheim (Cleveland: World, 1963).
17. Many of those who go about their business as though Hume had never written
do so not out of ignorance ofHume's works, but because they take Thomas Reid to
have satisfactorily answered Hume. Reid's influence on American fundamentalist
theologians was brought to bear by Princeton Theological Seminary professors john
Witherspoon, Samuel Stanhope Smith, and Charles Hodge.
 The Problem 13

work that there is now a third alternative-a new possibility for

rational support of theism using the resources of postfoundationalist
(postmodern) epistemology-but before turning to it we should take
at least a brief look at the two unsatisfactory alternatives. 18
According to Stout, the "dialectical progression" from Kant and
Schleiermacher to Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, Barth, and Tillich
takes Hume's accomplishment for granted. The attempt to refute
Hume on his own terms had retreated into obscure corners by the
end of the Victorian period. 19
Kant and Schleiermacher set out to separate religious thought
from the realm of science, Kant removing it to the moral sphere and
the realm of "practical reason," Schleiermacher to the realm of feel-
ing-an immediate awareness prior to the sort of discrimination
between subject and object that lies at the basis of scientific thinking.
Stout sees Hegel's accomplishment to be the reaffirmation of the
cognitive content of Christian doctrine. But Hegel's system would
fail on its own terms if the unities of thought in which he reconciled
the content of the Christian religion with the rest of culture failed to
represent real unities of life, and it did fail. Marx's criticism of the
Pietist spirit as withdrawal and Kierkegaard's diagnosis of the public
religion of the culture as essentially irreligious were conclusions to be
drawn from a careful reading of Hegel.
Stout endorses Barth's conclusion that there is no way around
Kant and Schleiermacher to the revival of natural theology and that
liberal theology is a dead end-a Schleiermacher will lead inevitably
to a Feuerbach. Barth is Stout's paradigm case of one of the two
variations of theism open to those who acknowledge Hume's accom-
plishment in that he abandoned apologetics altogether, claiming that
the revelation of God in jesus Christ is the sole condition of whatever
'knowledge' we might have of him. On this view, theology can be
rational when it is returned to its proper basis in the authority of
God's word-theology is an attempt to seek partial understanding of

r8. Because modern epistemology is so closely identified with foundationalism,

there is reason to suggest that the former ends with a thorough rejection of the latter.
Indeed I have argued that the modern period in philosophy came to an end at the
middle of this century with the rejection of foundationalism in epistemology, repre-
sentationalism in philosophy of language, and reductionism in metaphysics. Sec
below Chapter 6, sec. J.
19. Flight, pp. 128-29.
14 Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning

what we believe because of grace-fides quaerens intellectum. Stout

believes that Barth's insistence on the irreducibility of God's word
carries Kant's isolation of theological discourse from the rest of
culture to an extreme. In consequence, he undermines the precondi-
tions for genuine debate with secular thought.
If Barth represents one variant of post-Humean theism, Tillich
represents the other. Tillich keeps the terms of traditional theism but
so alters their meaning that only the words remain. Stout follows
Alasdair Macintyre in designating this option as "giving the atheist
less and less in which to disbelieve. " 2 0
Theology since Barth, Stout claims, is a sad story: "Those theolo-
gians who continue to seek a way between the horns, and thus to
remain within the secular academy without abandoning the commu-
nity of faith, have often been reduced to seemingly endless method-
ological foreplay. "21
So, to sum up, the theologian's options, as Stout sees them, are: (1)
ignore Hume, with the consequence that theology becomes irrele-
vant to the segment of the culture that has been affected by Enlight-
enment thought; or (2) take Hume's work for granted and either: (a)
find some other vindication for theology (moral, aesthetic, existen-
tial), with the consequence that theology loses its cognitive content
and becomes uninteresting; or (b) redefine terms so that theology has
its own peculiar form of 'rationality,' with the consequence that
theology becomes unintelligible to those who operate with the stan-
dard epistemology.

20. Ibid., p. 148. Cf. Nielsen's Philosophy and Atheism, pp. 20-21. Nielsen claims
that atheism must be defined as the rejection of one or more of three sorts of theism:
rejection of anthropomorphic concepts of God on the grounds that there (probably) is
no such being; rejection of traditional concepts of God such as those of Luther,
Calvin, Aquinas, Maimonides on the grounds that the concepts are incoherent; or
rejection of some modern or contemporary theologians' concepts of God because
they merely mask "an atheistic substance" such as love or moral ideals. Nielsen
counts Tillich an atheist of the first type. See also Alvin Plantinga, "Reason and Belief
in God," in Faith and Rationality, ed. Plantinga and Nicholas Wolterstorff (Notre
Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), pp. 16-93. On p. 16 Plantinga
makes an obvious reference to Tillich, who he says has sought to replace belief in God
with trust in the "Ground of Being." Among the "supersophisticates" who use the
phrase 'belief in God' in such as way that to believe in God is not to hold any
existential belief at all, Plantinga includes Rudolf Bultmann, R. B. Braithwaite,
Gordon Kaufman, and John Hick.
21. Flight, p. 147·
 The Problem 15

I wish to endorse Stout's claim that Protestant theology has suf-

fered a methodological crisis due to the collapse of the epistemology
of authority. In fact in Chapter 4 we will see that this crisis struck
Catholic theology as well, but nearly a century later. I also agree that
much of modern theology employs in one way or another a 'defensive
epistemology' -theologians seldom make straightforward claims
to knowledge about God and God's relationship to the observable
world. That the crisis is still with us is evidenced by the fact that
many recent theological works focus on methodology or 'founda-
tions,' and few theologians get past these prolegomena to the central
(doctrinal and moral) business of theology. From an inside view,
however, I believe the present crisis looks more like this: We are heirs
to two major strands of theology-liberal and nco-orthodox. Insofar
as no third option is discovered, theology remains in a state of crisis,
for each strand leads to a dead end. For liberals there is the unan-
swered question ofhow human experience can tell us anything about
God. For the nco-orthodox (and for fundamentalists as well) the
unanswered question is how we can know with the required certainty
that what we take to be revelation is indeed the word of God. 22
I emphatically take issue, however, with Stout's pessimistic prog-
nosis for theology, and I do so for two reasons. First, Stout has
ignored at least one important theologian, Wolfhart Pannenberg,
whose work represents the next step in the "dialectical progression"
from Kant to Barth and Tillich. Pannenberg is a nco-Hegelian,
reacting against both the liberal theology that preceded him and
Barth's nco-orthodoxy. In fact, Pannenberg's own analysis of the
present state of crisis in theology closely parallels Stout's. The next
chapter examines Pannenberg's work and shows that despite his
continental heritage, he does in fact meet Hume head on, defending
the knowledge claims of theology in the court of probable reasoning.
Thus Stout errs in concluding that vacuity or irrelevance have been
the only options for theologians who take Hume seriously.
Unfortunately, however, I shall conclude that despite Pannen-
berg's impressive struggle against the Humean limitations to theo-
logical knowledge, he has not succeeded. Yet, by examining the
point at which Pannenberg's system fails, we can discern the way

22. Cf. Thiemann, Revelation and Theology, p. 22. Thiemann traces this difficulty
to Locke.
r6 Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning

ahead more clearly. In brief, Pannenberg has employed an inade-

quate theory of scientific methodology, and this defect brings us to
the main point of this book. Chapter 3 outlines what is arguably the
best current account of scientific reasoning, that of Imre Lakatos.
The remainder of the volume is dedicated to showing that Lakatos's
methodology provides suitable guidance foJ the development of a
theology that meets Hume's requirement-that beliefs about God
stand up to the canons of probable reasoning.
Note that the important question is not whether theology can meet
the requirements of the crude empiricism of Hume's day. Science
itself could never have done so and cannot do so today. It is my
assessment that theories of probable reasoning have become sophisti-
cated enough only over the past two decades to allow for a meaning-
ful test of scientific or theological knowledge claims. Thus I cannot
be as scornful as Stout of the defenses developed by theologians
during the years from Hume to Lakatos.
A second reason for disagreeing with Stout's gloomy prognosis is
related to the first. Stout argues that the demise offoundationalism in
epistemology makes no difference to the effectiveness of Hume's
agnostic arguments. But close scrutiny of the new nonfoundational
epistemology will reveal that it offers exciting possibilities for theo-
logical methodology. Again, this brings us to current philosophy of
science, the source of the most detailed accounts of postmodern
epistemology.

2. Meeting Hume's Challenge-A Strategy

The best demonstration that Hume has not foreclosed all possibili-
ties for rational support of theism in this age of probable reasoning is
to produce an instance of such support. Let us consider in the abstract
what such a strategy might be. If we can place Hume in his own
context so as to see the problems and arguments to which he re-
sponded not as the timeless questions of theism, but as particular,
historically conditioned apologetic moves, then we may also see that
philosophy of religion can escape the shadow of his negative con-
clusions. Also, we must take into account the difference between
Hume's understanding and ours of such matters as what counts as
adequate evidence. My claim is that when we consider (r) the fact
 The Problem 17

that Hume's defeating of two apologetic strategies was not equiv-

alent to the defeat of theism itself, and (2) the vast changes since
Hume's day in our understanding of how evidence is brought to bear
to support theories, we will see that Hume's agnostic arguments,
although devastating in their day, have lost their teeth with the
passage of time.
Hume's strategy in his attack on apologetics was to divide and
conquer. This was a particularly apt strategy because theists them-
selves were divided into two camps, each with its own apologetics.
In fact, the deists with their argument from design were aligned with
Hume in attacking the more orthodox theists' attempts to validate
revelation on the basis of miracles. Hume's strategy is often de-
scribed as dialectic: in The Natural History ofReligion (1757) the claims
of orthodoxy were made to rest upon rationality alone, and then this
rationality was subjected to devastating analysis in the Dialogues
concerning Natural Religion (I 779). 23 Richard W ollheim more accu-
rately, I believe, describes Hume's attack as threefold: In the Di-
alogues he showed the ineffectiveness of rational arguments for the
existence of a deity, either a priori or a posteriori. In The Natural
History he showed the ineffectiveness of any appeal to historical
tradition to support religious truth. Finally in "Of Miracles" he
attacked the ultimate refuge of religion-revelation. 24
Two possibilities for circumventing Hume's arguments are imme-
diately apparent. One is to find a different means of validating revela-
tion that does not rely on belief in miracles. This was indeed the
ordinary apologetic inHume's day and before, but it is obviously not
the only possiblity. A look at theology today shows that numerous
alternatives have been developed.
Second, it bears repeating that the weakness of the theistic argu-
ments Hume considered and so easily demolished in the Dialogues
resulted from the separation of revealed knowledge of God's nature
from an abstract concept of God that was then to be supported by
evidence from experience. For the deists of Hume's day, this made
order the only relevant evidence for God's existence and nature. As

23. See, for example, Antony Flew, "The Impossibility of the Miraculous," in
Hume's Philosophy of Religion (Winston-Salem, N.C.: Wake Forest University Press,
1986), p. 10.
24. See Wollheim's Introduction to David Hume on Religion.
18 Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning

Hume showed so skillfully, such an argument standing alone is too

weak and one-dimensional to be either convincing of God's existence
or informative about his nature.
Thus it appears that the crucial step for an effective apologetic
strategy must be an approach to theology that docs not distinguish
between natural theology and theology of revelation, and one that
draws upon religious tradition to provide a nuanced concept of God.
This approach will be expected, in turn, to make relevant a greater
variety of evidential relations, and from this point on it becomes
necessary to have a more complex theory of evidential relations-it
calls for the best of the developments in philosophy of science since
Hume's day. In the end we may see that (contra Stout) Hume's
arguments do fail, partly because of the limitations inherent in his
empiricist foundationalism. Thus we shall have to take issue with
Stout's (and others') claims that epistemological changes since
Hume's day have not undermined the latter's position.25 The emer-
gence of holism and its consequences in philosophy of science have
drastically changed what it means to supply evidence for a hypoth-
esis. What could not be done with Hume's and others' simplistic
notions of evidence can be done today with a more adequate view. So
holism per se is not the issue, but holism must be viewed as of a piece
with other changes in both theology and philosophy of science.
Let us now look at Pannenberg's proposal for weaving methodol-
ogy, tradition, doctrine of revelation, and concept of God into a
"scientific" theology.
25. For example, see Nielsen, Philosophy and Atheism, n. 6 to text on p. r8.
 The Quest for Theological
Method-Pannenberg
versus Hume
Theologians-despite their attempts to reformulate Christian
theism in terms acceptable to a secular academic audience-
continue to skirt the issues implicit inHume's dictum that a
wise man proportions his belief to the evidence.
-jEFFREY STOUT, The Flightfi·om Authority

If the majority of recent theologians have merited Jeffrey Stout's

harsh criticism, Wolfhart Pannenberg is one notable exception. Pan-
nenberg's may be the boldest attempt in this generation to establish
the credibility of Christian belief vis-a-vis the canons of probable
reasoning. Furthermore, Pannenberg's system provides an almost
point-by-point counter to the positions argued by David Hume,
despite the appearance of vast differences in philosophical presuppo-
sitions-British empiricist versus continental Hegelian.
The strategy for circumventing Hume's negative conclusions
sketched at the end of the preceding chapter included a doctrine of
revelation validated on some basis other than miracles, a concept of
God drawn from religious tradition rather than from philosophical
speculation, and a new (more complex) account of relations between
theory and evidence. Pannenberg's system incorporates all these
moves. To see how it does so, we must consider four interrelated
elements ofhis theological program: (1) his doctrine of revelation, (2)
his concept of God, (3) his methodology and its relation to scientific
method, and (4) his proposed order of argument for the existence of
God-or put differently, his plan for a scientific theology.
20 ] Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning

Even so, it will in the end appear that Pannenberg, too, is defeated
by the arguments of the Scottish philosopher of two centuries past.
Yet, because Pannenberg's system fails for want of an adequate
theory of scientific method, it can be repaired if we can reconstruct it
in light of a more adequate philosophy of science. This chapter will
be dedicated to explication and criticism of Pannenbcrg's system; in
Chapter 6 I shall indicate how his system can be recast as a scientiftc
research program and thereby evade Humean objections.

r. Pannenberg's Theory ofRevclation

Pannenberg objects to those twentieth-century theories of revela-

tion that in one way or another make Christian belief immune from
criticism. He accuses Karl Barth of "scriptural positivism," in that
no answer can be given, on Barth's view, to the question how we can
know that this is God's word-revelation is supposed to be self-
authenticating. 1 While Pannenberg agrees with the dialectical theolo-
gians in emphasizing that the content of revelation is God himself, he
maintains that we do not encounter God directly. 2 We come to know
God indirectly by means of his acts in history. Although the Chris-
tian theologian's interest will focus on certain events-the history of
Israel, Jesus, and the church-Pannenberg believes that it is a mistake
to select a special salvation history apart from universal history,
immune from historical critical methods and interpretable only from
the point of view of faith. 3 Following the German idealist tradition,
he proposes a theory of revelation as history: God is revealed in the
whole of the historical process, a process open to inspection by
believer and unbeliever alike.

I. See, for example, Barth's Church Dogmatics, l/ I (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark,

I936); and his Epistle to the Romans (London: Oxford University Press, 1968).
2. Pannenberg's theory of revelation is set out in Revelation as History, coauthored
with RolfRendtorff, Ulrich Wilckens, and Trutz Rcndtorff(New York: Macmillan,
1968). Trans. by David Granskou of Offmbarung als Ceschiclzte (Giittingen: Van-
denhoeck und Ruprecht, I96J).
J. See, for example, Oscar Cullmann, Salvation as History (London: SCM Press,
1967); or H. Richard Niebuhr, The Meaning of Revelatio11 (New York: Macmillan,
1941).
 The Quest for Theological Method 21

But the idealists' theory of revelation-as-history has had its own

besetting problem: to explain how a single event in history (the
"Christ event") can have absolute meaning, because it would seem
that no single act of God could reveal him completely-only the
totality of his acts could do so. Yet the totality of history is not
available for inspection. Pannenberg claims that this problem can be
solved by attending to the eschatological nature of Jesus' resurrec-
tion-it is a foretaste of the end of human history. In a limited sense
we know ahead of time how the entire course of history will come
out: the end will be on a cosmic scale what has already happened in
Jesus. The God of Israel, of whom we claim to have knowledge
based upon his actions in the past, will be confirmed as the God of all
people on the last day. Thus, while it is only the whole ofhistory that
demonstrates the deity of the one God, there is still one particular
event that has absolute meaning as the revelation of God insofar as it
anticipates the end of history.
Pannenberg's understanding of the nature of revelation leads to a
corresponding account of the role of Scripture in Christian thought.
Scripture witnesses to God's revelation insofar as it foretells or re-
ports God's historical acts. He associates his understanding of Scrip-
ture with Gerhard von Rad's view of the texts as products of the
transmission of traditions. The traditions are constantly reinter-
preted in light oflater events until we come to the New Testament
where Jesus' resurrection is (in the sense just explained) the last event,
and all of history to that point (as recorded in the Old Testament) is
given its final reinterpretation from that perspective. This is the sense
in which the New Testament has final authority. No 'later' events
can now occasion further reinterpretation.
In contrast to many theologians who pay scant attention to apoc-
alyptic literature, Pannenberg sees it as the final step by which the Old
Testament writers appropriated the whole of history for JHWH's
dominion and as a necessary presupposition for understanding jesus'
resurrection as God's definitive act of self-revelation. Pannenberg and
his coauthor Ulrich Wilckens argue that Jesus' own overarching
presuppositions were apocalyptic. Jesus' understanding ofhimself, of
God, and ofhistory-indeed his entire message in word and deed-is
revelatory because the whole of his life was vindicated by God's
raising him from death.
22 Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning

2. Pannenberg's Theological Method

My exposition of Pannenberg's theory of revelation-as-history

leads directly to the question of the nature of theological method. If
theology takes revelation as its norm, and if revelation occurs in and
through historical events as recorded in Scripture, then theological
method must be historical method. Yet this cannot be the whole of
it. Pannenberg emphasizes that the very meaning of the word 'God'
requires that theology be more than interpretation of the Scriptures.
He adopts RudolfBultmann's definition, intended to be more or less
tradition-neutral, that God is the all-determining reality-the power
that determines everything that exists. But this philosophical con-
ception of God must be corrected and transformed in Christian
theology by its application to the God of Israel.
As a result of Pannenberg's dual concept of God, Christian theol-
ogy must take place "within the tension between two tendencies":
one is the concern about the faithfulness of theology to its origin in
the revelation of God in Jesus Christ as witnessed in the Scriptures.
On the other hand, theology must be related to all truth whatever
because all being must be understood in relation to God, the "all-
determining reality." Ultimately, the theologian must attempt to
relate all other knowledge to the God of the Bible and to attain a new
understanding of everything by viewing it in this light. 4
Here Pannenberg deliberately rejects the tendency of modern the-
ology, epitomized by Barth and criticized by Stout, to isolate itself
from the rest ofknowledge. When theology limits itself to the task of
interpreting Scripture, it gains the advantage of peaceful coexistence
with the other faculties of the university. Yet the price of conceiving
of theology as the science of revelation is estrangement from and
irrelevance to the secular sciences.
Pannenberg's definition of God and doctrine of revelation make it
necessary to discuss his theological method under two headings: (1)
the use of Scripture in theology-historical and hermeneutical meth-
ods, and (2) confirmation of the Christian tradition vis-a-vis all
known reality.
4· Wolfhart Panncnberg, Basic Questions in Theology, val. r (London: SCM Press,
1970), p. 1. Trans. by George H. Kehm of Grundfragen systematischer Theologie,
Gesammelte Aufsatzc (Gi:ittingen: Vandcnhoeck und Ruprecht, 1967), p. 7. Here-
after BQT and GsT respectively.
 The Quest for Theological Method ( 23

2. I The Role of Scripture in Theology

In Luther's day it was possible to hold the doctrine of the clarity of
Scripture-that its essential content arises clearly and univocally
from its words. Hence Luther could claim that his doctrinal state-
ments were simply restatements of the contents of the New Testa-
ment in a different form. Post-Enlightenment theology recognizes
two problems of distance that were not problems for Luther: (I) the
difference between the literal sense of the texts and their historical
content-that is, the distance between the texts and the events they
record; and (2) the historical distance between the theologian today
and the texts of the primitive Christian period.
It is common to take the distance between text and the contempo-
rary interpreter as the central problem for theological methodology.
The theory of hermeneutics deals with the problem of the "repeti-
tion" of the same content in a completely changed situation. H. G.
Gadamer describes the task of spanning the distance between text and
interpreter as that of the "fusion of horizons." But how this can be
done, Pannenberg notes, is an open question in theology today.
Pannenberg answers that we are able to understand Scriptural texts
because we already share a common horizon with the primitive
Christian church, simply by virtue of the fact that we belong to a
common historical process. Recognition of this common horizon re-
quires two things: ftrst, that it be shown to the secular present that its
own hope for the future can be realized in the foundational event of
primitive Christianity; and second, that we have the idea of universal
history-that is, that all ofhistory is moving toward a common goal.
Such a notion is our legacy from Israel via the Christian church. 5 Put
more briefly, what is required in order to make the New Testament
texts speak meaningfully today is a recognition that the resurrection
of Jesus answers for all of us, despite our far remove from first-
century Palestine, the questions of where history is going and of our
own personal fate.
Thus the question of what the Scriptural texts mean today is inte-
grally related to the question of what really happened. If in fact the
revelation of God takes place in historical events and is available to
anyone who witnesses those events then, given our shared horizon of

s. BQT, pp. 9-12; GsT, pp. 17-20.

 Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning

universal history and hope for the future, what is required to make
the texts speak meaningfully today is to uncover and clarify the
events themselves. This is the task of the historian; theology is
hermeneutical, but its hermeneutic method is historical investigation.
The task, however, is not merely to compile a catalog of neutral
events (Historie), but rather to assign events their place in a meaning-
ful whole.
Pannenberg notes that ultimately the historian must assume some
ground for the unity of the totality of history, with regard to which
all events take on their ultimate significance, and only the concept of
God can provide such a ground. It is the concept of the one, faithjiJl
God who is both creator and eschatological judge that renders all
events a single unified whole. Notice, though, that even if the histo-
rian is with varying degrees of consciousness assuming a transcen-
dent ground of unity, the theologian's emphasis or direction of
inquiry differs from that of the historian. Whereas the historian
assumes a "pre-projected unity of history," the theologian must in-
quire specifically about this universal context of meaning. Of course
the theologian's projection of the unity of history is, as is the histo-
rian's, in need of confirmation. 6 Among all possible confirmatory
events, Christians' theological interest favors those associated with
Jesus ofNazareth.
So we return, after distinguishing the nature of historical and
theological investigations, to the more concrete question about the
means for investigating the events surrounding the life and death of
Jesus. The controversy regarding what can and cannot be known
about Jesus from historical investigation has been fierce and long-
lived. Pannenberg enters the discussion not at the level of particular
findings, but by challenging methodological decisions made by his-
torians, beginning with Giambattista Vico (1668- r 744), which sys-
tematically rule out the possibility of certain findings regarding New
Testament events. It is specifically the anthropocentrism of modern
historical-critical method that Pannenberg calls into question, be-
cause it has two unacceptable consequences. First, by pinning the
unity of history to the human story (rather than to God's) it frag-
ments history and results in relativism. Second, it is apt to exclude all
transcendent reality as a matter of course. A. principle of analogy-
that putative past events are to be ascribed prpbability on the basis of
6. BQT, p. 199; GsT, pp. 171-72.
 The Quest for Theological Method 25

resemblance to current events-is part and parcel of this anthropo-

centric methodology. Pannenberg claims, however, that it is not
knowledge of regularity (and thus of abstractions) that constitutes
historical knowledge, but rather that history is knowledge of (con-
crete) particulars. The recognition of analogies can be used in a
limited way to allow for discovery of the limitations of what is held in
common between ourselves and the past-to see the differences
along with the similarities. Given this restricted role of analogy, we
cannot deny knowledge of that which has no exact analogy. In the
case of a genuinely unique event, however, the historian's knowl-
edge is limited. While it can be known that such an event has taken
place, the event still remains "opaque"; it is not understood in the way
a familiar event is understood. 7
There is a second role for analogy in Pannenberg's conception of
historical method. In the study of historical documents, including
the Scriptures, exact analogy to a form of tradition that has no
referent (myths, legends, and the like) is good reason for concluding
that the reported 'event' is not historical.
In sum, though not denying the importance of analogy with the
present for our understanding of the past, Pannenberg does deny that
knowledge of the past is strictly limited to events of the same type as
those in current experience, for if historical-critical method were to
take analogy to common current events as a necessary condition for
establishing the occurrence of a past event, then it would systemati-
cally exclude the possibility of any knowledge of God's unique ac-
tions in history.
Because analogy to current events is not the powerful criterion for
Pannenberg that it is for other historians, he must supply additional
means for deciding on the historicity of events. We will see in the
next section that his method is much like that for testing any scien-
tific hypothesis.

2. 2 Confirming the Christian Tradition vis-a-vis All

Known Reality
Pannenberg claims that if theology is only a "science of revela-
tion," based on the Scriptures alone and not confirmed by present
experience, then it is no science at all. Yet, as I emphasized above,
7· BQT, pp. 35-48; GsT, pp. 43-54.
 Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning

confirmation of the existence of God must make use of religious

tradition.
Pannenberg agrees with Stout regarding the source of the question
of the scientific status of theology. Since the Middle Ages theology
has claimed to be a science; can it now, after the age of authority,
defend its knowledge claims using generally accepted epistemic stan-
dards?

The ... concern, to defend the truth of Christianity by generally

accepted criteria, has been present since the thirteenth century in the
argument about the scientific status of theology and its right to be
included among the sciences taught in a university. If theology were
now forced to disappear from the universities on the ground, main-
tained by many people, that it is essentially tied to authority and
therefore unscientific, this would be a severe setback for the Christian
understanding of truth ....
The questioning of the scientific character of theology within theol-
ogy itself is paralleled in recent discussion in philosophy of science by
influential tendencies which seek to deny Christian theology any claim
to scientific validity. As a reaction to the efforts of many theologians
to provide theology with general immunity from rational criticism,
these tendencies are largely understandable. They have, however, the
additional effect ofhelping tie theology to a justification of its thematic
which is irrationalist and based on an appeal to authority, even though
this in turn constitutes another ground for criticism of theology. 8

Pannenberg recognizes that the paradigm of science today is natu-

ral science, which no longer needs epistemological justification but
instead, because of its success, prescribes where and in what sense we
may talk of knowledge. Epistemology has been replaced by philoso-
phy of science. 9 Consequently he begins his case for the scientific
status of theology with a history of philosophy of science from
logical positivism through the critical rationalism of Karl Popper. 10
While logical positivism held sway, there were apparently two

8. Wolfhart Pannenberg, Theology and the Philosophy of Science (Philadelphia:

Westminster Press, 1 976), pp. 13, 20. Trans. by Francis McDonagh of Wissenschafis-
theorie und Theologie (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1973), pp. 17, 24. Hereafter TPS;
WT for the German edition.
9· TPS, pp. 26-27; WT, p. 28.
ro. See Popper's Logik der Forschung (Vienna, 1935), trans. Popper eta!. as The
Logic of Scientific Discovery (New York: Harper, 1965).
 The Quest for Theological Method 27

routes for theology to take: to deny the cognitive meaning of theo-

logical statements or to criticize the empiricist criterion of meaning.
Panncnberg gives Popper credit for recognizing the difficulties of
logical positivism and thus, indirectly, freeing theology from its
restrictions. But there remains the question whether Popper's meth-
odology of falsificationism is the proper criterion by which to judge
the scientific status of theology. Pannenberg concludes for several
reasons that it is not: First he notes the holist criticisms of Popper's
methodology, raised especially by Thomas Kuhn, and then argues
that neither history nor the historical elements in the natural sciences
can be treated methodologically as Popper's views would require. 11
Despite his rejection of Popper's criterion for scientific reasoning,
Pannenberg endorses his position regarding the anticipatory character
of all knowledge. In Popper's view, the basic statements upon which
science relies are not incorrigible-they are accepted on convention
by the scientific community but can always be called into question by
later discoveries and subjected to testing and perhaps revision. Thus
scientific knowledge is based on the anticipation that further testing
will continue to support one's conclusions. But even low-level em-
pirical statements arc anticipatory-dependent upon predictions that
future sensory experience will not call them into question.
Having rejected Popper's methodology of falsificationism, Pan-
nenberg proposes that theories are to be criticized on the basis of how
well (coherently, parsimoniously, and accurately) they account for
all the available data. This view takes account of (some of) the
criticism brought to bear against Popper's methodology and has the
further advantage of being general enough to apply to history and
even to philosophy.12
Pannenberg next addresses the relation between the natural sci-
ences and the human sciences. He follows Wilhelm Dilthey (1833-
191 1) in maintaining that the distinctive task of the human sciences is
the understanding of meaning, which is brought about by placing
human phenomena as parts within the larger 'whole' to which they
belong. This hermeneutic process, according to Pannenberg, always
involves at least implicitly a conception of the whole historical pro-

1 r. See Thomas Kuhn, The Structllre of Scientific Revolutions, 2d cd. (Chicago:

University of Chicago Press, 1970).
12. TPS, chap. r.
28 Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning

cess, because the meanings of events change as history progresses.

Understanding the meaning ofhuman action is always dependent on
"semantic constructions which in turn are related to the totality of
meaning which constitutes the horizon of any given human group-
ing's experience. "1.3 This being the general method of the human
sciences, Pannenberg argues, there is no real difference between the
methods of the human and natural sciences-explanation in both can
be understood in exactly the same terms.

The explanation puts forward a new frame of reference within which

the previously unintelligible event now becomes intelligible. A frame
of reference of this sort can be set up by a hypotheticalla w, but also by
other things. Stephen Toulmin has described the main effect of expla-
nation as 'making sense' of previously unintelligible observations. In
Toulmin's view this takes place not only through the construction of
hypotheses but also quite generally in the construction of 'ideals of the
natural order' which are used by human beings as 'explanatory para-
digms ... to make nature intelligible to them.' This remark implies,
even though Toulmin does not stress it explicitly, a starting-point in
systems-theory rather than in a merely nomological notion of expla-
nation.14

Thus Toulmin's understanding can be applied to all types of expla-

nation: they all function by placing the fact to be explained in a
context in which it can be understood as meaningful. In history the
context is the series to which the event belongs. In natural science a
single event is explained by being shown to be an instance of a natural
law, and the law itself is explained by being situated within the
context of a theory, and the theory within the context of an ideal of
natural order. In hermeneutic method the text is understood by being
related to the semantic whole to which it belongs.
With these conclusions regarding the nature of scientific method,
Pannenberg turns to the question of the scientific status of theology.
Two recent views on the matter are those of theology as the scientific
study of religion and as the science of God and of revelation. Pannen-
berg attributes the latter view to Barth, whom he commends for
returning theology's focus to its proper object, namely God. On the
other hand, he criticizes Barth for basing theology on faith, which is

IJ. TPS, pp. ro2-3; WT, p. ro4.

14· TPS, p. 139; WT, pp. 140-4I. References to Toulmin's work are from
Foresight and Understanding (New York: Harper, 196r).
 The Quest for Theological Method 29

not available to critical reason, and thus making dialogue with those
outside faith impossible. The problem for a scientific theology, as
Pannenberg sees it, is to show that God's existence and dominion
over history can, through reflection on the Christian tradition, be
substantiated in a way that does not depend on an "arbitrary venture
of faith on the part of the theologian." 15
Theology is a true science of God (and also a true science of
religion) when it investigates religious traditions to see to what
extent their conceptions of the whole of reality are able to take
account of all currently accessible aspects of reality. That is, tradi-
tional claims of religions are to be regarded by the theologian as
hypotheses to be judged on the basis of their ability to integrate the
complexity of current experience into their religious understanding.
The criteria (from Pannenberg's earlier discussion) are parsimony,
coherence, and accuracy.
To sum up, I began with Pannenberg's view that Christian theol-
ogy takes place "between two tendencies." We can now see precisely
what this means. On the one hand the Christian theologian is respon-
sible for studying the Christian tradition in order faithfully to under-
stand what it has to say about God. This is done by means of the
hermeneutical-historical method, which itself raises the question of
the totality of the historical process and the source of its unity. On the
other hand the theologian is responsible for testing the Christian
tradition's concept of God and of the 'whole' against everything that
is known today about the course of history, and for judging whether
the tradition's understanding is the best available account of the
whole of experience.
The theologian's task becomes scientific because of this second
aspect. As we saw above, Pannenberg conceives the task of the
scientist to be the proposal and testing of general theories on the basis
of their capacity to make intelligible a wide variety of phenomena.
Theology's method is exactly the same as that of the scientist
(whether natural or human science); its only difference is the level of
generality. Theology deals with the broadest possible context-with
theories about the source of unity of the whole of (historical) reality.
These theories arise from religious experience but are subject to
testing against all other experience.
Pannenberg's discussion of theological method is complex and at

rs. TPS, p. 277; WT, p. 279.

JO Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning

times unclear. Let us therefore return to the question ofJesus' resur-

rection to see how he actually supports his position. This examina-
tion will also give us a starting point for an overview ofPannenberg's
program for scientific support for the truth of Christian theology.

3· Pannenberg's Scientific Theology

Jesus' resurrection plays a crucial role in Pannenberg's theology,

because it solves the problem of how we can know ahead of time
about the totality of history. This problem arose from Pannenberg's
Hegelian doctrine of revelation, and we can now see that it arises also
from his general theory of method: all understanding implicitly
raises the question of the totality of history, and theology in particu-
lar seeks to evaluate theories about this totality. Pannenberg claims
that in Jesus' resurrection we see in microcosm the transformation
that awaits the entire cosmos, and in this the vindication of the God
ofJesus as the all-determining reality. With so much hanging on this
peculiar event, we must see what scientific support Pannenberg can
provide for it. On the basis of the foregoing description of his
methodology, we should expect him to begin with the relevant texts,
explicating them first by relating the text to its larger context, and
then to confirm the larger context by showing that it also accounts
for aspects of current experience. He must also show that the (au-
thentic) resurrection narratives show no positive analogy to legend,
myth, or the like.
Pannenberg notes that in the earliest texts the tradition of Jesus'
appearances to his followers is separate from the empty-tomb tradi-
tion; as time goes by they become progressively more closely linked.
Therefore he treats the two traditions separately. The appearance
accounts in the Gospels are so thoroughly imbued with legendary
elements that he disregards them and concentrates on Paul's account,
especially his report in I Corinthians I 5:3-8:

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that

Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was
buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the
scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then
he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of
whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he ap-
peared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely
born, he appeared also to me.
 The Quest for Theological Method 3I

Here Pannenberg emphasizes the proximity of Paul's reports to the

events themselves. Although I Corinthians was not written until 56
or 57, Paul's visit to Jerusalem, where he would have met at least
some of the witnesses mentioned, would have been only six to eight
years after Jesus' death. He concludes: "In view of the age of the
formulated traditions used by Paul and of the proximity of Paul to
the events, the assumption that appearances of the resurrected Lord
were really experienced by a number of members of the primitive
Christian community and not perhaps freely invented in the course
of later legendary developments has good historical foundation. " 16
Next Pannenberg considers what this experience must have been
like. Again, Paul's first-hand account is most reliable, and Paul
assumed that his experience was like the others'. Paul's account
yields several conclusions: the relation of the appearance to the man
Jesus was clear, and the appearance was a soma pneumatikon-a spir-
itual body, not an earthly body resuscitated. Thus Paul's experience
was a most unusual one, describable not in literal terms, but only by
means of a metaphor-Jesus had 'awakened' from the 'sleep' of
death. Furthermore, Pannenberg notes, the apocalyptic outlook
prevalent at that time was a necessary condition for the appearances
to be recognized as those of one who had been resurrected from the
dead.
Here we see Pannenberg shifting from textual criticism to consider
the horizon of meaning within which the text must be understood. He
claims that we could not make sense of the fact that the disciples
interpreted their visionary experiences as appearances of one raised
from the dead apart from our knowledge of the apocalyptic thinking
of the age. This is also, however, the point at which he makes a move
to tie the tradition as so far understood to current experience. He asks
whether we can use the apocalyptic tradition not only to account for
what the first Christians thought, but also to account (to ourselves) for
what actually happened. To answer, we must decide whether our
own experience warrants an expectation for resurrection similar to
that of the apocalyptic tradition. Pannenberg bases his argument for
such an expectation on the universal phenomenon of hope. Citing
evidence from medical studies to the effect that people without hope

r6. Wolfhart Pannenberg, jesus-God and Man (Philadelphia: Westminster Press,

1968), p. 91. Trans. by Lewis L. Wilkins and Duane A. Priebe of Grundziige der
Christologie (Giitersloh: Giitersloher Verlagshaus G. Mohn, 1964), p. 87. Hereafter
JGM and GC respectively.
32 Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning

simply do not live, he concludes that most people do have enough

hope in the future to make their lives and pursuits seem worthwhile.
Then he argues that if there is no expectation (either conscious or
suppressed) that death is not the end for the individual, then this
universal hope is unjustified. The two available concepts of life
beyond death are that of the immortality of the soul and that of
resurrection (and transformation) of the entire person. Pannenberg
claims that we have now come to see, on the basis of scientific
knowledge regarding the dependence of mental functions upon the
physical, that the survival of a soul beyond the decay of the body is
not intelligible. Thus he concludes that resurrection is the most
promising source of hope for life after death.
Pannenberg is not claiming that we must know with any certainty
that resurrection awaits us; we must only consider it to be a real
possibility such that it provides an interpretive category with which
to understand the evidence in the text. If the historian is certain ahead
of time that the dead do not rise, then it has already been decided that
what happened to Jesus was not resurrection. If, however, resurrec-
tion is a viable option for people today in anticipating their own
future, and if no better explanation is suggested by the text, then we
have warrant for adopting the same explanation of Paul's and the
others' postcrucifixion experiences that they themselves adopted
spontaneously. Notice that our becoming aware of our own hope for
resurrection is the means by which our horizon is "fused" with that
of the apocalyptic horizon of the first-century Christians.
Pannenberg also considers the tradition of the empty tomb, con-
cluding that it arose independently from the appearance accounts and
thereby supports the conclusion reached so far, not only because it
supplies independent evidence but also because the main competing
theory to explain the appearances is that they were purely psycholog-
ical aberrations produced by the disciples' excitement over the empty
tomb. All things considered, Pannenberg concludes that jesus' resur-
rection is "historically very probable" and therefore ought to be
accepted in the absence of any other equally well supported hypoth-
esis.17
We can see that in his investigation of the resurrection Pannenberg
is faithful to his own methodological prescriptions. Jesus' resurrec-
tion in turn is the foundation of Pannenberg's dogmatic theology.

17. ]GM, p. xos; GC, p. xo3.

 The Quest for Theological Method 33

For example, it is the resurrection that vindicates Jesus' otherwise

blasphemous claims that he is entitled to rewrite the law and that the
last judgment will be made on the basis of one's reaction to him. In
other words, the resurrection is the key to Christo logy, and Chris-
tology is the key to the rest of theology-most important, to the
Christian doctrine of God.
If we were to represent Pannenberg's view of theology in spatial
terms we might describe it this way: Theology begins with two sets
of concentric circles. One set involves the texts of the Christian
Scriptures. In Pannenberg's theology the texts concerning Jesus'
resurrection are at the very center, surrounded by circles represent-
ing the increasingly broad contexts required for their full under-
standing-most immediately, the rest of the New Testament. The
apocalyptic worldview of the first century would in turn form an
important context for understanding the New Testament.
Beside this first series of concentric circles is another representing
our own experience and the ever-broadening contexts within which
we attempt to interpret it. At some point moving outward we reach a
circle that encompasses both the texts and our own experience. In the
example of the resurrection, this circle would represent an under-
standing of human life as destined for a transformed future beyond
death. This circle represents the immediate context for understand-
ing the apocalyptic world view mentioned above. The Christian view
of God, based upon Jesus' resurrection, is finally represented by the
outermost circle, intended to encompass and give meaning to all
experience and to all other contexts of meaning.
In propositional form we might summarize Pannenberg's view of
theology as follows:

(1) 'God' is defined as the all-determining reality.

(2) Religious traditions are interpretations of special events
through the course of history in which the all-determining
reality is believed to have made itself known.
(3) Philosophy of history raises (but cannot by itself answer)
the question of the source of the unity of history. To raise
this question is to raise implicitly and formally the ques-
tion of God as the all-determining reality.
(4) The theologian, working as a scientist, examines religious
traditions as hypotheses about the nature of the all-deter-
mining reality, judging them on the basis of how well
34] Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning

(coherently, parsimoniously, accurately) they account for

the totality of historical experience up to the present.
(5) The theologian working within a tradition seeks to under-
stand that tradition "out of itself" and in relation to its
historical context, proposing reinterpretations that are at
once faithful to the original tradition yet responsive to the
pressures of new experience.
(6) The Christian tradition asserts that the God of Abraham,
Moses, and Jesus is the ultimate determinant of the entire
course of history and will be clearly shown to be so on the
last day.
(7) This claim, however, has already been confirmed by the
exceedingly important historical fact that Jesus, the puta-
tive spokesman for this God, was raised from the dead.
This resurrection both confirms Jesus' understanding of
God and allows us to know in advance how history will
end on the last day.
(8) Insofar as Jesus' resurrection is supportable by scientific
(historical) investigation, the whole of Christian theology
as understood in relation to this event is given scientific
status. It is a hypothesis about the meaning of the totality
of history-already confirmed to some extent but open
to further conftrmation as we continue to investigate
whether and how it can shed light upon all other knowl-
edge.

4· The Hume-Pannenberg Debate

Pannenberg's system is impressive in scope and coherence. Fur-

thermore, his assessment of what is needed if theology's cognitive
claims are to be rationally supportable today is, in my view, right on
the mark. The critical question to be addressed in this section, how-
ever, is whether or not Pannenberg has met Hume on his own terms
and has provided the kind of support for theism about which Hume
was so skeptical. The crucial issue will be whether Pannenberg's
system provides an adequate theory of scientific method.

4· r Hume
In order to evaluate Pannenberg's achievement against Hume's
agnostic arguments, we must see Hume's work in its broader con-
 The Quest for Theological Method 35

text. Donald Livingston's book, Hume's Philosophy ofCommon Life,

provides a valuable insight into Hume's philosophical work by plac-
ing it against the background of his interest in history, and it is at the
level of philosophy of history that the points of agreement and
disagreement between Pannenberg and Hume can best be seen. 18
According to Livingston, one of Hume's major goals was to demol-
ish the providential view of history, a view firmly established in
Hume's time both in popular consciousness and in the metaphysical
framework within which the scientists of the age worked. Joseph
Priestley, for example, believed that history promised to provide the
most important source of insight into divine activity and plan. As we
learn more of history, we see more and more clearly the perfections
and providence of God, and that the "grand catastrophe" is growing
nearer. 19 David Hartley believed that biblical prophecy could be
scientifically established and used to understand the historical signifi-
cance ofhis own age. 20
Livingston points out that for Hume the moral world is woven
together by the narrative imagination, which registers the passions
and thoughts we have about our temporal involvement with natural
objects and with one another. "It is a world of narrative associations,
that is, of stories having varying degrees of significance and gener-
ality." The question then arises for Hume whether these stories
might form a system of stories, whether the unities of action that
constitute them are, in turn, part of some larger story. "The provi-
dential and prophetic view of history is just such a story, and Hume
most explicitly rejected it. " 21
Hume's arguments are found in An Enquiry concerning Human
Understanding (1748). 22 In section X, entitled "Of Miracles," he ex-
tended his argument against belief in miracles to include prophecy. If
prophecy exceeds our ordinary human powers to make predic-
tions-that is, if it is genuine knowledge of the future-then it must
be accounted a miracle, and all the objections (summarized in Chap-

18. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.

19. Joseph Priestley, Lectures on History and General Policy (Dublin, 1778), pp. 452-
53·
20. David Hartley, Observations on Man, His Frame, His .Duty, and His Expectations,
2 vols. (London, 1769).
21. Livingston, Hume's Philosophy, p. 149.
22. References are to L. A. Selby-Bigge's edition (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1902). Hereafter Human Understanding.
 Theology in the Age of Scientific Reasoning

ter I above) apply. The following section, entitled "Of a Particular

Providence and of a Future State," contains Hume's objections to the
view that we can know by means of reason, based on our experience
of the moral order in history, that God is perfectly benevolent and
that he therefore has a plan for the perfection of the human condition
or future punishment of the wicked. Hume argued that in reasoning
from effects to causes we are justified in attributing to the cause only
those properties needed to explain the observed effect. Thus God
may be justifiably attributed a benevolence proportionate to the
amount ofjustice or progress actually observed in history, but there
is no justification for inferring from what we have seen that God is
more just or benevolent and therefore has a "more finished scheme or
plan, which will receive its completion in some distant point of space
or time. " 23 We know no more about God than whatever may be
necessary to explain the phenomena we have observed so far, and we
certainly know nothing about the future based upon such a concep-
tion of God.
(Note that although Hume has granted throughout the main part
of his essay that God may be known through his effects in history,
and argues as though he seeks only to limit the extent of this knowl-
edge and its usefulness for interpreting history, he ends by expressing
doubt that we can know of God at all through these means. The
argument so far has traded upon knowledge of causes by means of
their effects, but it is really only when two species of objects are
constantly conjoined that we can argue from the appearance of an
object of the second type to the existence of an object of the first type.
The universe is one of a kind, however, and so is the hypothesized
cause of it, namely God.)
Let us test Livingston's thesis that "one of Burne's main philo-
sophical and historical tasks was to supplant the traditional Christian
story line of the creation, fall, and redemption ... by a new unity of
action based along secular and humanistic lines" by seeing how far it
can be used as a key to understanding the rest ofHume's work. 24 We
shall see that it allows us to understand Hume's agnostic arguments
as part of a positive strategy to defend his own views of historical
methodology and of the origin and justification of moral judgments.

23. Ibid., p. 143.

24. Hume's Philosophy, p. 141.
Random documents with unrelated
content Scribd suggests to you:
Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project
Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed,
viewed, copied or distributed:

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United

States and most other parts of the world at no cost and
with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it,
give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project
Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United
States, you will have to check the laws of the country
where you are located before using this eBook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is

derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of
the copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to
anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges.
If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the
phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of
paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use
of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth
in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is

posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and
distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through
1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder.
Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™
License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright
holder found at the beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project

Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files
 containing a part of this work or any other work associated with
Project Gutenberg™.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute

this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1
with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the
Project Gutenberg™ License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form,
including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if
you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project
Gutenberg™ work in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or
other format used in the official version posted on the official
Project Gutenberg™ website (www.gutenberg.org), you must,
at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy,
a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy
upon request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or
other form. Any alternate format must include the full Project
Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,

performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™
works unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or

providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works provided that:

• You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive
from the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the
method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The
fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark,
but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty
 payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on
which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your
periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked
as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information
about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation.”

• You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who

notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt
that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project
Gutenberg™ License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg™ works.

• You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of

any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in
the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90
days of receipt of the work.

• You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project

Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different
terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain
permission in writing from the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project Gutenberg™
trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3
below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend

considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on,
transcribe and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright
law in creating the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these
efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium
on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as,
but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data,
transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property
infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be
read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except

for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in
paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark,
and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic
work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for
damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE
THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT
EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE
THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY
DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE
TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL,
PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE
NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you

discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of
receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you
paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you
received the work from. If you received the work on a physical
medium, you must return the medium with your written
explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the
defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu
of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.
If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund
in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set

forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’,
WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied

warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this
agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this
agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the
maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable
state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of
this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the

Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the
Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™
electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any
volunteers associated with the production, promotion and
distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless
from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that
arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you
do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project
Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or
deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect
you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission

of Project Gutenberg™
Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new
computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of
volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the

assistance they need are critical to reaching Project
Gutenberg™’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™
collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In
2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was
created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project
Gutenberg™ and future generations. To learn more about the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your
efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the
Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org.

Section 3. Information about the Project

Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-
profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the
laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status
by the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or
federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions
to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax
deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and
your state’s laws.

The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500

West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact
links and up to date contact information can be found at the
Foundation’s website and official page at
www.gutenberg.org/contact
 Section 4. Information about Donations to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without
widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission
of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works
that can be freely distributed in machine-readable form
accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated
equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly
important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws

regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of
the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform
and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many
fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not
solicit donations in locations where we have not received written
confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine
the status of compliance for any particular state visit
www.gutenberg.org/donate.

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states

where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know
of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from
donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot

make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations
received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp
our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current

donation methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a
number of other ways including checks, online payments and
credit card donations. To donate, please visit:
www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About

Project Gutenberg™ electronic works
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could
be freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose
network of volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several

printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by
copyright in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus,
we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any
particular paper edition.

Most people start at our website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,

including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new
eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear
about new eBooks.
Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.

More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge

connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and

personal growth every day!

ebookbell.com