Faith in a God without Contours?

Abstract This article investigates a tension within Wolfhart Pannenberg’s theology that becomes visible when his account of faith as trust is considered alongside his doctrine of God. On the one hand, Pannenberg argues that Christian faith, understood as trust (fiducia) , presupposes that God himself can meaningfully be regarded as trustworthy. On the other hand, his early reflections on religious language suggest that all talk about God is equivocal. If this is the case, then the conceptual contours of God seem to recede precisely at the point where faith appears to presuppose them. The article first reconstructs these two lines of argument and identifies the point at which they come into conflict. It then examines whether anthropological and hermeneutical considerations within Pannenberg’s own thought mitigate this tension. Finally, it argues that Pannenberg’s later theology allows for a more cataphatic understanding of God that is better able to support the logic of Christian trust.